Final Evaluation Question

Looking back at your preliminary task, what have learnt from it to the progression of a full media product?

Looking back at the preliminary task I feel like my knowledge of filming and camera angles/shots has improved massively. When filming the preliminary task it was interesting to experiment and try different shots such as the 360 degree and match on action. These are important as I incorporated them into my final media product meaning that they were relevant to both the narrative and the understanding of the opening scene for our final media product. In addition to this I think the editing as played the biggest part I making the opening scene look professional and have continuity without this it wouldn’t look like a well thought out and planned media product and instead would cut from scene to scene making it appear to mix-matched. In the preliminary task we held the iPad at different angles, forgetting to lock it, meaning that when it was all put together there were black borders along the clips meaning we had to refilm certain clips all over again, however we learnt from this mistake and knew our whole opening scene would be in jeopardy if we made this mistake again so checked frequently that the Ipad screen lock was on at all times.

From the preliminary task I learnt that planning is very important if we had any chance of creating a successful, professional looking final product. In the preliminary task my group and I spent some time creating a storyboard and getting together to discuss how we were going to approach the filming and idea behind the task. However when creating our final media product I find that a lot more planning was necessary, I created a very detailed storyboard which can be found on my blog, I detailed the lighting, sound and narrative behind the opening scene as well as adding images and timing so that when it came to filming I could constantly refer back to these ideas and aid the group in understanding what had to be filmed and where it should be placed when we put it all together on final cut pro. And this wasn’t the only planning resource that was helpful to me, I also carried out a focus group to gather info on what the target audience wanted from a horror film and analysed a variety of previous existing media products so that I had a very clear idea of what was expected from a horror film.

 

The filming process in the prelim task had a very strict specification that we had to follow however we could use whatever camera shots and movement we felt were necessary to catch the attention of the audience. When filming I used different shots for the same clips to make sure that I had plenty of options to choose from when putting my media product together.

Finally I had a lot more experience when it came to editing my final opening scene to a horror film as even though I had some previous experience using the macs and final cut pro within my GCSE course, the prelim task refreshed my memory and helped me get to grips with the software again. Also I feel like I could experiment with the software a lot more on the final product as we covered the basics when creating the prelim video such as using tools such as blade and trim. Whereas in the final opening scene I used advanced features such as Ken Burns and flashback effects as well as changing the opacity and speed of some of the clips.

Overall I feel like I have progressed both with filming, editing and overall creativity from a very basic clip for the pre-lim to a detailed and complex opening scene to a horror film.