7 WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT FILM MAKING

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

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At the start of the year my group and I created a preliminary exercise, however we did not have enough time to do any research as we only had approximately three lessons to plan, shoot and edit the whole prelim. In order to achieve the preliminary exercise we had to film it on a professional camera and include techniques such as shot-reverse-shot and the 180-degree rule. Whilst filming the prelim, I learned how to use and bubble the tripod as we were using it for the majority of the time. The preliminarily exercise had to consist of a character opening a door, entering a room and sitting opposite another character.

 









As we had not done any research for our preliminary exercise we did not realise the amount of research that had to be done for our film opening. However, with the help of the website 'Art of the Title' it made it much easier for my group to come up with an idea for the genre of our film opening. We decided on the genre of drama/mystery then quickly researched a lot of films with this same genre on 'Art of the Title'. It was very useful as it held a lot of information as well as inspiring us.

By researching film openings I have gained a better understanding of how they should start and the different camera angles that are used and where the key titles and credits are placed. The film opening should make it clear to the audience what genre it is by the colours and music used. I have a better view on what a good film opening needs to include and so I have used the skills learned and include it in my own film opening. Researching has helped greatly as we were able to see what professionals do and then adapt from their work to guarantee we have the highest standard film opening.
I understand that different camera angles serve different functions as they symbolise
different things. For example, a birds eye shot or an extreme long shot are usually establishing shots, whereas close ups allow the viewer to see the emotion or reaction on the characters face to understand how they are feeling. My group and I were a little unsure when filming our prelim as it was the first time we had properly filmed anything but we still managed to include tracking shots, close ups and over the shoulder shots. However, by the time we got onto filming for our prelim we were much more confident in filming as we had experience and were more willing to include a wider range of camera shots.

To edit the prelim and the film opening we used i movie. When editing the prelim we didn't spend a huge amount of time on it as we did not have long to work on it. As it was quite short we thought there was not any point in a soundtrack or transitions between the different shots so we just kept it simple. When it came down to editing the film opening, we wanted to make it look more visually appealing. In order to achieve this we added in transitional effects and changed the filter on some of the scenes. Moreover, we included sound effects and sound tracks.




I found that the organisation of the preliminary exercise was easier as it was done in school time so there was no need to meet up in our free time and we had props provided for us. The shot list created helped us with our planning as it included what the characters would say, what would be in the scene and what would be happening in the scene. My group struggled with the organisation of the film opening more as we had to meet up outiside of school hours so we needed to find times we were all free, as well as this people had different free periods.
My media class and I went on a study day to the BFI in November. In this day we learned about international and national films and how they please audiences. We had talks from many different people in which they discussed what goes in to making a film, how to market it and the costs of doing so. This helped me relate to the making of our film opening as we needed to decide how we were going to film and edit it to fit it in with our target audience.
I feel as though I have learned a lot about film making through the quality of our first preliminary exercise to our film opening. I have developed my editing and camera work skills and found that working in a group has a huge benefit as you are able to get ideas off each other as well as getting feedback from one another.

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