Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

An important aspect of the preliminary task for me was, as I was new to Media Studies at the beginning of this year, familiarising myself with the camera and the key theory behind film making. During this process, I learned how to manipulate the tripod and remove the camera from it as well as the importance of continuity when producing a film so as not to confuse the audience.

The first thing we did when preparing for the film opening task was film an accident as part of our preliminary. In this, we learned the 180 degree rule by breaking it.

When one of the boys (Harry) says "What are you doing?", we go to the other side of the pair's bodies, which is confusing as it gives the impression that they have switched sides completely, which can be disorientating for the audience.

From this, we also learnt to use the establishing shot to give the audience an idea of where the characters are.

The next important part of our process was the preliminary activity of someone walking into a room and exchanging a few words with someone else in there. We learnt two important things from this:

• Match-on-action. This can be seen when the agent (Kayvon) opens the door
• The 30 degree rule. Again, we learned this one by breaking it. Initially, when we had filmed this, we filmed two very similar shots, which we had to split up with a shot of the evil woman (me) in the editing process

The preliminary task was a simple, practical method of learning the key theory which would later dictate the success of the finished film opening.

It was particularly vital as Media Studies is a largely practical subject which consequently means that the best way to find out about it is to experience it yourself. The 180 degree rule in particular was confusing until we were given the opportunity to try it out for ourselves and make mistakes,

We then used these processes during the production of our film opening.

We made sure we did not break the 180 degree rule by showing movement in the shots whenever we needed to break it.

Another important aspect was dressing the set. Without an idea of how to dress the set, it would have been difficult to create both the desired sultry effect for our film opening as well as making the location/set realistic. This can be seen in my preliinary acivity. It was about a James Bond-like spy breaking into a villain's secret hideout, but the setting was so unrealistic that it was comican and therefore we were forced to make the preliminary more comical in order for it to be entertaining for the audience.

In contrast, during the filming for the Film Opening Task, we payed special attention to the dressing table, making sure that there was not any large empty spaces or overly cluttered areas on the table to give the audience that this is an authentic dressing table to make the characters and what they are doing in the opening seem more authentic, enabling the audience to better suspend their disbelief. As well as this, we made sure that the majority of the perfume bottles we used were red in order to adhere to our colour choices nd give the impression of bloodm forshadowing what happens later in the film.

The storyboard is also a bis aspect of my personal learning curve from this Film Opening experience. Idiscovered that it is usefu when ordering thoughts to have a sotryboard and that it speeds up the shoot as we had a clear and mutual idea in our heads as to what it was we were going to try to achieve. We were also able to eliminate the majority of the continuity errors earlier on and go back to modify if we founda mistake. However,  I slao discovered that we should not simply feel as though we were confined to what we had pre-planned in the storyboard and instead be open for new suggestions as things may change when we finallyreach the location.