Preliminary Task Evaluation: Vianca (2)

Production Processes

My preliminary task was split up into 3 sections, pre-production, production and post production. Like every other film, these processes are vital. I will explain what we did in each section when producing the preliminary video. 

Pre-Production 

My preliminary task involved a few things that were part of the pre-production process, which were the research and planning stuff. There weren't a lot of research time since we only had 10 minutes of planning time. In this time, we planned our pre-production process which included:

Narrative - 

We had to plan a narrative for our preliminary project. In this part, we planned what the storyline was going to be and what were going to be said. Our storyline was quite rushed, considering the time planning time we were given, but we managed to go along with it, experimenting with what we could do instead of another thing.

For example, our initial idea was that Aidan comes in to ask to borrow a pen or that we would have lunch together and just have a random chat. Our final idea was that Aidan should ask to copy my maths homework, I get irritated but give it anyway. We had to say the same things twice, which became difficult as we only had one camera, and memories of a gold fish, so we decided to make a quick script. 

As you may, or may not very well, be able to see, our script was rushed but it still prompted us remember what to say and when to say it. Also, if you read the script against my preliminary, it is not 100% accurately the same. This is because we felt more natural to say what we would really say as opposed to speech on paper. But, when we did this, we had to remember the words that we (didn't/did) say instead, which weren't very had as they were just little words. 

Cast/Crew - 

Another important part of pre-production was choosing who will play as a star and who will be part of the crew. There weren't a variety of choices to choose from since there was only 4 of us and one camera with a tripod. This is my group again, as shown on our welcome page.

 Holly, on the far left, was the final actress shown in the preliminary, Tawanda, next to Holly, was the cinematographer, Aidan and I, the last two, were the stars acting. It was a quick and simple process of choosing who would do what because there were so few of us. 

Location - 

Again, there weren't many choices to choose from as we were restricted to film inside the school site. This meant we had to choose areas only in the school area which were inside the main foyer, just outside the main building and around the school. We decided to film from the media block's boy's toilets up until into the 6th form study room. This was easy to locate  and use because they are fairly close to each other meaning we didn't have to travel every corner of the school! 

Production 

Production included everything during the filming process. During production, we had to consider and bear in mind many things. These include: 

Construction of filming -

In order to have a good footage, we had to make sure filming was going to go as planned. We used a tripod at some parts such as the end. But we didn't exactly show it in our final piece. 

Camera shots/angles/composition - 

Cinematography was important in our preliminary and we considered a lot whilst filming. We had to bear in mind the 180 degree rule and also played around with different camera angles. During the conversation bit at the end, we filmed it twice as we had to get the view from my point of view and then from Aidan's point of view, in order for us to have shot-reverse-shot, edited in the post production bit. 

Post Production 

Post production was the editing process. My group split up in pairs and edited the raw footage differently and we finished with two similar, yet very different, preliminary videos. Here, there was also a few factors we had to consider whilst editing our raw footage. These were:

Visual line -

In order to make the video flow, we had to cut bits off and re-attach them. It was tricky to get everything on timing, especially the beginning where Aidan is going over to the hand-dryer and the conversation at the end!

This was because for the conversation, we had more than one take of the conversation as we had to do it from both perspective. Therefore, during editing, Holly and I had to make sure I ended on the same words when the camera went back to Aidan and vice versa.

Audio line -

As time was tight, Holly and I only had a few minutes to add sound. We went for the more calm, jazz sound at the beginning so the audience feels relaxed, just like Aidan in the video. Then, as soon as he realises he hasn't done homework, we thought we would create a more intense vibe, for fun.

It was silent when he said 'HOMEWORK!' to show that Aidan's mind has gone blank and only focused on homework. After this, we increased the pace and intensity for a bit with the sort of fast, long-paused, drumming sound.

The sound then changed to when he walked in the door, which was again silent to create confusion with the audience, to a more funky, jungle-y, audio. This was intended for a change in vibe.