The student learned several important lessons when progressing from their preliminary film task to the full film product. For the preliminary task, they used basic equipment which produced a low quality, half minute film with poor editing and planning. However, it helped them learn better filming, editing, planning and teamwork skills. For the full product, they applied these lessons to plan more thoroughly, use higher quality equipment, improve their editing skills, and strengthen team communication. The end result was a much higher quality film that showed the effects of practicing and learning from their earlier mistakes.

1. Question 7- Looking back at your preliminary
task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
By Katie Wright

2. Preliminary film task
• At the beginning of the year we created a
preliminary film.
• This was very basic and we made this short film in
order to practice our editing skills and piece
together some basic shots and angles.
• We filmed this using a basic film camera which
was low quality and didn't have a good focus.
• The preliminary film was only half a minute long
and so did not have many shots in it and had a
very basic narrative.

3. Preliminary film task
• With the editing, we used final cut express which
was very basic software.
• We were new to editing and so the clips were
then poorly edited together whilst we were still
figuring out the basics.
• We also added a soundtrack which was
downloaded from a royalty free website, which
was chosen with lack of consideration.
• The storyboard that we created was also basic as
it was a short film with a 30 second limit, and so
included few angles and shots.

4. Preliminary film task
• When using the tripod for the first time, we
found it hard to manoeuvre and was then
accidently broken whilst filming.
• The part of the film that we struggled with
was the continuity, as we only had two days to
film in which meant the actors in it weren't
consistently dressed in terms of costume and
makeup, which made the film look
unprofessional.

5. Development – learning lessons
• With these mistakes made when filming, we
then got a better idea of what needed to be
done when filming our opening.
• This meant there was more continuity and a
lot more caution when handling the
equipment.

6. Development – planning
• We planned our final film using a storyboard; just
as we did with our preliminary film.
• We’d learnt to include a larger variety of shots to
add to the effect and suspense of the film.
• Over time, we had to adjust our film opening
using storyboards, adding shots and cutting out
unnecessary parts.
• These shots were well planned and thought
through so they made sense to the narrative,
which differs from the preliminary film planning
which was quick and required no edits.

7. Development – editing
• When we were editing our final film product, we
used Premiere Pro rather than Final cut express.
• This was a lot more advanced software, but by
practicing on final cut allowed us to settle in with
the editing tools a lot quicker in which meant we
could learn to use advance editing tools quicker
as well.
• When we were editing on Premiere pro for the
final product, it was well thought through and
consist in comparison to using final cut for the
preliminary film which was sloppy and careless.

8. Development – equipment
• For our final film, we filmed used a Nikon d3200 rather
than a flip camera.
• This was at a much higher quality and was capable of
doing things necessary for our final film such as blur
and focus on objects.
• However, practicing on the flip camera allowed us to
get an idea on how to handle different shots and
whether they were better or worse with a tripod.
• When we filmed our shots using the Nikon, they were
well planned and thought through in great depth, in
which multiple takes were taken so we had more than
one option, which is an advancement from the
preliminary film in which only one shot of each clip was
taken.

9. Development – camera skills
• Using the flip camera before the Nikon helped us
to understand the basics of how shots work and
how they can be improved.
• By using the Nikon, we were able to improve and
get steadier shots, as well as a better focus on the
object.
• We advanced on our skills by testing out the
camera on set by experimenting with new shots
to see if they worked which then gave us a larger
variety of shots to work with.

10. Development – creating titles
• For both the preliminary film and the film opening we
used LiveType to create the titles.
• In our original preliminary film the typography style
and animation was very basic, didn’t represent a
specific genre and didn’t have much thought put into
it.
• However, by practicing using these fonts gave us an
understand of how LiveType worked and so we were
able to improve on this for our final film opening.
• When we created the typography for the titles of the
film opening, both the animation and the font
style/colour related to the genre, and was audience
tested and improved before using it in the final cut.

11. Development - teamwork
• The teamwork in both the preliminary task and the
final task was consistent and everyone played a role.
• However, when making our film opening we used more
communication methods then we did in our
preliminary task.
• When filming for our opening we used either Facebook
or text between both cast and production team, in
which both methods are reliable forms of
communication.
• This is an improvement from communication from the
preliminary film, in which was only done during school
time and had there been more communication we
would have avoided the issue with continuity.

12. Development - sound
• In our preliminary film, no sounds were added during the
editing process.
• For our final film opening, however, we created our own
sounds.
• This was inspired from the sound effects we found online,
in which we also used the idea of a train whistle to relate to
the setting (abandoned train track).
• We pieced together a collection of different train whistle
sound pitches and lengths which we then added a distorted
sound effects over the top, and put together in a collection.
• After asking a collective group which sound they thought
was ideal, we added it to our final cut.
• This is a well thought process which advances from the
preliminary task when we didn’t consider adding sound at
all.