Conor Sturgess Q7 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Editing

I feel that i've been able to extend the knowledge I gained from our first preliminary task. For instance, I learned many key skills while editing our preliminary film and I was able to use those skills in the production of our final opening scene. Editing was the skill I was most confident about after our preliminary exercise. We used a software named ‘Imovie’ and we were taught how to use various advanced editing techniques. Although there is much more I need to learn I feel I could solely complete an opening scene using the techniques I learnt from Imovie.

However, when editing our Preliminary task we had a slight problem. The continuity seemed very unrealistic as we started filming immediately after the word ‘Action’. This made it very difficult to edit clips and paste them into scenes as it all seemed way too jerky and a little bit fake. But we learnt from our mistake, and made sure that in our opening scene we wouldn't have the same problem as we left a 2-3 second gap after the word action.

Filming

Having used a wide range of different shots during the planning of our opening scene I felt that the possibilities of how you can shoot a scene were definitely opened up. For example, the tracking shot, Point of view (POV) and above the shoulder shot. It was always our intention to somehow place a tracking shot in our opening scene, but not in our preliminary task.

Therefore, we used our preliminary task to practise the point of view and above the shoulder shots. We used the ‘Point of view’ shot when our actress is opening the door but we ended up replacing it with a shot of her from behind walking in. The POV shot  made the continuity seem very unrealistic as it was nearly impossible to cut to a shot of them sitting down talking afterwards.