I think the preliminary task was a big introduction for us, it thought us some camera skills e.g. how types of shots could create a significant difference to the entire clip.For example, Almost all the shots in my preliminary task were captured on a tripod because we were not confident enough to record hand held, we were trying to make sure the camera wasn’t shaking, but now we realized that recording by hand or even shaking the camera purposely could make a difference in a positive way. Hand held shots, created the motion for our film; the fact that the camera kept moving instead of being placed on the tripod creates the sense of movement of the actors in the clip. This draws the audience closer to the film because it tells them that something is going to take place; the pace of the movement of the camera already signifies the mood and what is going to happen. For example; in a chasing scene the camera would be very unstable and shaking a lot, this is used because even without showing the actor, the audience would be able to tell that there is a chasing scene going on or about to happen.
Having done the preliminary task successfully I became very aware of many types of shots such as mid shots, zooming, panning, close-up etc. Panning shots was used in my preliminary task to show the two actors communicating but it became really important and compulsory in my main film intro because the panning shot was used to show the location, where the film is set in. When Photographing a moving subject, the panning technique is achieved by keeping the subject in the same position of the frame for the duration of the exposure. Panning shot was used to record the actor when he was moving in order to follow and keep up with the actor. Panning can also be used to show the character moods, this is achieved greatly when it is done hand held, a great example of this is my first intro when ‘Scott Parker’ was standing still but there was a hand held panning on him, the camera was going around him in a circular motion and slowly it became faster and faster, the camera became more shakier. This is to show that as time goes by, ‘Scott Parker’ starts to struggle, and he is unable to cope with the terrible situation.
Another vital shot which I practiced while filming the preliminary task is the mid shot, which is used to emphasize the body language and gesture of the actor. The best part of the shot is that it can show facial expression, gestures and body language at the same time because the shot is used to capture everything at the same time; this was used often in my preliminary task which reinforce why it was used successfully in my Final film intro.
Zooming is also very useful to get into a specific point at a specific time and to exclude every other object or place in the scene. This wasn’t used in my preliminary task because I didn’t need to exclude anything. However using the shooting of my 2 minutes intro it became important, because the camera was far away from the actual place we wanted to capture.
After the preliminary task I knew that I had to familiarize myself with different types of software because after my preliminary task, I started getting ideas of what to do in the actual final piece but I didn’t know how to do most of the things I wanted to do e.g. effects, layer etc. So I searched it up On You Tube and tried watching some tutorials, we were able to perfect some parts of these software such as Imovie, movie maker, logic. After learning after effects tutorials, I can now say that I am even able to teach others, (a tutorial video made by me will be on this blog). Most of the editing was done on Imovie and after effects, since I do not own an Imac, at home I used Movie maker and after effects and later converted it into a version compatible for the Imovie on Imac.
To conclude, we learnt to re-shoot anything that we thought didn't work right. For example the first preliminary task we had didn’t go too well because the camera angles did not match, when an actor was talking, the camera was not capturing the actors face when they are speaking and according to my media teacher “that is not right”. So my partner and I had to re-shoot. We also had to re-shoot some parts of the final piece because we noticed that the first film we made did not fit into the genre we had chosen. We had to change the main aspect in terms of the task which was to create a 2 minutes opening intro into a film; we did a short movie instead. Though the first film did not workout it gave us a lot of practice and experience with using the softwares and camera angles. Through the first movie we made, we noticed that the film was too fast and that the fast speed took away the the original genre we had chosen and turned it into a British crime, gangster film. Having learnt to re-shoot when something isn’t right during the recording of my preliminary task, re-shooting the Final opening piece was not hard for my partner and I and even though it was quite stressful to travel to the shooting location; we did what we had to do.
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