Evaluation Q7

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

At the start of the year in September when our media class shot out preliminary task we were all very inexperienced with it all. I had never experienced filming or editing so it was all very new to me, for my preliminary task I had to use my non existing camera and editing skills. The preliminary task consists of very simple camera shots like the simple close up of the clock and the simple behind the shoulder tracking shot, the editing was all very basic as well mainly because of how simple the shots where and because of how unfamiliar I was with Adobe Premiere Pro. As a whole there was not much work put into the prelim task it was just a practice and to introduce us to filming and editing so the sounds used were simple sounds already downloaded in my files.

The preliminary task looks very unprofessional because of how basic it is and my lack of knowledge with media studies at the time, you can see the huge contrast between the prelim and my final product, RUN. The contrast shows that I have really developed with my skills in camera work and editing, through more experience with the camera I learnt how to perform proper industry standard shots using just the equipment I had. I think when practising the filming of RUN I picked up my skill for filming very fast. I think this was because I am an Artist and as an artist I know what looks good and what doesn’t, a lot of shots where planned out and designed in my head, as a creative person this really helped and I used my creativity in filming. I’ve had experience in the past with photography and enjoy it, this also helped out especially in still extreme close ups like those in the forest. This close up of the leaf is a good example of where ive used my photography skills, its allowed me too take a very clear and crisp, shallow focus shot.

The same kind of principle applied for editing, the fact that I do A-level art and that I am creative played a huge role when editing because my eye for what looks good made it successful. I had to choose which shots looked best and what sounds to put where. I felt that I really enjoyed this editing process because I got really stuck in right from the start. Although I needed some help at the start It didn’t take me too long to learn how to use Premier Pro. below is s screenshot I've taken from using premier pro while editing. On the time line you can see the colored bars, the top row is the visuals the second row are the sounds that come with the visuals and the third and fourth rows are sounds that have been added. 

I’ve learnt how to target an audience through studying other horror films, there conventions and age restrictions. In the process I’ve learnt a lot about other horror films, there typical conventions and what makes them scary. I found my target audience and questioned them using survey monkey which was also new to me. Survey monkey helped me to successfully target my audience by making online surveys that where sent out to people within my school.

I feel like my organisation skills have dramatically improved, getting all your ideas down and onto blogger was harder than I expected but the more you put on your blog the more organised you feel. I have developed a lot from my initial ideas but always stuck with the similar ideas that I was thinking from right at the start when I decided that I was going to create a horror genre film, I always knew the locations that I was going to used and I’m happy that I stuck with them because the settings played a vital role to the success.

As a whole i am very pleased with my final outcome, i am so happy about how much i have improved and developed, i feel like i've really picked up a skill for both filming and editing. It has been a challenging and a very new process for me but i have really enjoyed myself as i made my film and developed my ideas, I am looking forward to making another product so i can develop my skills further and make it even better.