Question 1 - What have you learned during the making of your preliminary task?

What have I learnt?

Technical Aspects

• Attaching a tripod to a camera
• Using a DSLR
• Using Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Before I could start the process of making my preliminary task I obviously had to learn how to actually handle some equipment. So before we started filming (as I was the director of photography) Mr Welch took me though a brief description of how to attach the camera to the tripod so that was the first thing I learnt to do with the technical aspects. Then once I'd managed to do that, I started looking at the camera, which was a DSLR camera and I had never used one before but it was pretty easy how to use so I quickly learnt how to take the videos and pictures and get them in focus.
After filming all the different videos and shots we needed, we moved on to the computers and chose which clips we needed to keep or delete so we could then move on to using Adobe Premiere Pro CC and putting the clips together and editing them so that it actually looked like a video. This was the hardest part I found as I'd never used this programme and there was so many different parts to it and a range of effects, sounds etc which made it hard to choose what to use and when.

How to manage time

My group worked extremely well to make sure we filmed in a quick period of time as we thought it was important to have more time editing than filming so in my opinion I don't feel that managing time was something we learnt in this task but I believe we did do it quickly and efficiently and this will help us know how long we need in the future on other tasks when filming and editing.

Group Work 

I worked in a group with Eloise and Leah I think we were a great group as we worked well together and got along well so it was easier to make decisions within the group and this allowed us to be more productive and throughout the process of making the preliminary task I feel we all did well in working together and making sure everything got done quickly and to a good standard. Whilst filming and editing we made sure that each of us were always doing something instead of sitting around and this increased our productivity.

Storyboarding

Before we starting our story board and planned which shots we would use when filming, Mrs Spalding took us through a brief lesson on how to do the drawings to make them look more realistic. We learnt how to draw the heads of people in different ways to make it look like they're facing a different angle and we also learnt how to use different shading techniques so that the anyone could tell what the lighting is like e.g. if the room is dark we would use intense cross hatching to make it look like that.

Issues around continuity

When we filmed the clips of the preliminary task we all thought that the clips would link together well and we would have no continuity problems, however when it came to editing and putting the clips together we did have a few problems with continuity as some clips ended up being jumpy when the final video was put together but I have learnt from this and realise that I made mistakes when moving to other positions to film another shot so next time I film I will ensure there will be no continuity issues.