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

By Danniella Chapman

What skills did I already have?When it comes to the skill’s I already had, I came out of GCSE Media with a B, I had learnt several skill when it came to editing the film. This includes, knowing how to add sound, how to add a transition, one of the most common used was the fade. I even learnt how to fade out sound and music. This made it more realistic and the audience never noticed when the music had stopped. I knew how to add text, and most of the basics, which I was taught in GCSE. When it comes to directing, I used camera angles such as hand held, over the shoulder and high angle, these camera angles were also used to give the impression our film was a thriller.

How did I adapt to A LevelI adapted to A Level by learning separate skills from other students, some students had learned how to separate the audio from the video, this way we was able to move the sound from one part of the video to the other. However during the editing part of the process I didn’t do much of the editing.When it comes to the preliminary task, we had several camera shots we needed to learn and put those into our filming, to do so, one of the shots we needed was over the shoulder shot, and a shot-reverse-shot editing movement, this is used to show conversation between two characters.

(Click on the picture to view our AS Media film)

What issues were involved in the making of the preliminary task

When we were filming the preliminary task, there was a lot of issues that were constantly arising within the filming process. One of them being, we had to change where we were filming several times due to us not being able to shoot all the scenes of that location in one hour. There was also times where because we were in the school we needed the area to be quite, except there was several times where people had walked in front of us filming. This meant we had to cut in-between scenes making It take longer to complete. Another issue we faced was, getting everyone to remember to wear the same clothes, this was to make sure there was no continuity error within the film.

Preliminary taskThis is my preliminary task, filmed by PlumbeTech Productions, just click on the picture to view my preliminary task

How did I adapt these issues into the film?

When it comes to the filming and editing of our film we still shared some similar issues, however these were tried to avoid as much as possible.We adapted the issues by sticking to our locations, however at one point we still had to re-arrange where we were filming due to continuous noise within our film, the poor quality of film made us realise we needed to change the location, and so we changed the scene to outdoors. This made and looked like it was realistic.

What did I learn from my preliminary task?

From our film, I have learned about how important it is to plan ahead when it comes to filming, this way we can ensure everyone is available during that time, and so everyone can be present. The type of shots used are important to showcase the type of film you are portraying, and as you’re showing the film to an audience, its essential you film what they like. Finally, its important that I focus on the target audience and what is going to attract them the most.

Click on the picture to view our AS Media film