7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
by Dom Lewis
1. Also, planning for my main brief was something I did much better than my mini brief. This is because when we got to filming I already new which shots roughly I needed. Also, I had the 180 degree rule in mind at all time so that the audience was never confused.
2. Moreover, sound is a micro-element vital to any piece. I learnt this from our mini brief. The only sounds in our mini brief was speech which is not captured very well on the camera and the level varies. So when we took on the main brief research into similar products became essential in ideas and ways of using successful sounds to create a particular feeling for the audience.This gave us inspiration to find and create an excellent soundtrack of six different layers of sounds the whole way through the piece to intertwine creating the tension to the piece.
3. Then after correcting all these mistakes shown in my mini brief now better in my main brief, my editing skills have got massively better just through sheer practise and time spent on the editing software. My editing skills also advanced through the editing tutorials provided by WeVideo which gave basic instructions of how to do simple stuff on the software. Once my editing skills advanced it was a lot easier merging and improving my main brief videos compared to my mini brief. I watched other tutorials on text and credits, meaning I was able to create effective credits on our main brief remove the amateurism of our video.
4. I then looked how to achieve a level four. Then I found out that I needed material that related to the target audience of our final product. So I took action by carrying out more research on the stereotypical horror target audience. I then took out primary research by creating questionnaires which was shared on social media, which gave me another insight.The information I gathered from this was to definitely be shown in my main brief. The credits I used in my opening was to be defined by my target audience research and what is similar to the films that are similar to my own.
5. For time management, this was 100 times better for our main brief than our mini brief. This is because we gave ourselves plenty of time to re-shot when needed, which before we didn't at all as we left our mini brief to the dying moments. The reason we made this error was because we did not create a production schedule, however for the main brief, it was one of our first steps. Our production schedule included: research into similar products, research into micro-elements, research into filming, when to film, when to refilm, how to edit, when to edit. This was all spread out all in proportion to the activities so that it gave enough time to complete everything with time to re-do if needed. This allowed us to get most of the pre-production work done very early to allow us as much time in post-production as in theory is the most important stage as it's the 'finishing touch'.
6. From the beginning of the task, I have learnt many things leading to creating a much better main brief than from my mini brief. Looking back at my preliminary task I saw my weaknesses of; shots with dead space, rule of thirds was not applied to my shots, unsteady shots, out of focus shots due to not being able to use camera and tripod properly and lastly poor mise-en-scene.
6.1. To improve the weaknesses shown in my mini brief, I ensured that I practised and learnt more about how to improve these negatives to make sure it did not occur again in the main brief.
7. Firstly, correcting unsteady shots. The way I improved this problem was by firstly making sure I booked out the tripod in advance when planning to film. This meant I had a tripod to assist getting steadier shots. However, I did all of this in my mini brief. But where the difference was made this time was learning how to position a tripod properly as well as setting up and fixing the camera onto the tripod correctly. The effect this had on my main brief was that it gave it a more professional look by better filmed shots.
8. Moving on, when thinking about mise-en-scene, we ensured that it suited the genre of our opening as well as being personalised to our narrative. The way I used research to help gather this information was through questionnaires and research into similar products such as in the film The Woman In Black. This showed us that a location such as an elevator can help isolate the victim creating more suspense. Also, that the costume choice of all black for the antagonist connotes death and danger. We also made sure there was no relevant props in the background to be spotted to maintain a professional look.
9. The dead space that was in my mini brief was easily overcome in my main brief by a simple touch. This was the grid button on the camera. This grid showed me where each actor was in the shot as well as the background and other props. This eliminated dead space as I could place what I wanted where due to also being my role as the director. This was done using the rule of thirds, so that I made sure the protagonist and antagonist were the main focus, drawing attention to them.
10. Furthermore, the skill of using the camera correctly to keep shots in focus was vital. I learnt and practised using the camera to film in focus shots unlike my mini brief. There is a button on the camera which gets the shot in focus which was very important as didn't know about it when filming my mini brief.
