AS G321: Reflection - That's My House!

Reflection of our Preliminary Task entitled 'That's My House!':

Planning:

Within the planning process, we brainstormed a variety of different ideas that fulfilled the criteria within our brief; 'Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.' We then decided on one idea as a group, before writing a treatment of the film. The treatment included developed information on our characters and product considerations (such as location). Next, we wrote our script and planned out every shot that we intended to film on a shot list, which allowed us to create a coherent storyboard. We successfully utilised social media through 'Whatsapp' to keep our actors and crew updated with the filming schedule and script. We then decided to plan the order of filming for the day of the shoot, choosing to film in chronological shot order, however, if multiple shots were required to be filmed in the same locations we filmed them together first. This forward planning benefitted us as it provided us with goals we had to achieve by the end of the shoot and allowed every member of our group to know what we were doing. 

Production: 

The production process involved a two-hour shoot my role, in particular, was to film the production and take care of the lighting. The production process was a challenge as our set was the interior of someone's house and therefore it was quite tight and difficult to fit the equipment into the limited space. Despite this, our planning meant that the shoot was completed within the time restraints, and the actors (who had already been sent the script and informed of our intentions for the film, due to our planning) knew what they had to in the scene, and performed excellently. However, the shot list that we were supposed to stick to was often ignored, in favour of experimental shots, which meant the continuity throughout didn't flow as well as it should have. 

Technology:

Within this process, I encountered Premiere Pro, a software I had used once before, but I wasn't entirely familiar with the program. However, upon using it, I found the interface was incredibly similar to Final Cut Pro X; an editing software I had been using for a long time prior. This made it quite easy to adapt to Premiere Pro. For guidance our group watched some tutorials, explaining how to use the software. This was useful as it gave us an idea of how to colour grade our production, which made it more 'cinematically appealing.'

Through this process, we learnt how to use our DSLR cameras more effectively from Canon Tutorials and practised these techniques on various shots within our preliminary task. These skills such as aperture will be invaluable when approaching our main task, as it enables us to use our cameras to capture the best shots. For example adjusting the aperture will change the depth of field of shot, either creating a sharp background if we want to focus on a looming object, or decreasing the focus of the background. 

Problem Solving: 

A problem we encountered when in post-production was that we hadn't filmed enough coverage shots, and certain shots were missing. This meant that shots didn't always link together well and therefore to solve this problem we cut shots and trimmed others to improve continuity of the film. We also included fade/dissolve transitions to infer to the audience the passing of time. Another problem we encountered was we were unable to find royalty free/copyright free sound effects (such as a punch sound) that sounded realistic enough to provide sound for the shot where Emma punched Emily. In order to overcome this problem, we used an external microphone and audio recording software to record foley sounds. We recorded someone clapping their hands together, whilst watching the offline edit of our film in order to get the timing of the punch right. This was much more effective. 

Team Work:

Overall, our group worked well together. A particular strength was our ability to create compromises, by amalgamating each members varying ideas to create a good concept. Our team also had excellent morale throughout the process, which kept up the work ethic. During the production phase roles weren't equally distributed between members, and it was also hard to edit the production as not everyone had access to the software. 

At the beginning of the project we distributed our planning tasks, but the majority of the work was completed by myself as certain members didn't complete everything by deadlines. I believe I contributed very well, I completed many of the planning documents and I was heavily involved in the production and post-production phases, albeit my contribution lessened on set due to other members deciding they didn't want to share roles equally. Despite this, we did create a successful film, with everyone's input and ideas being listened too.