Production

When filming our preliminary task, we ran in to a few problems. Firstly, before any shooting even began, we had to change the location of our task. This was because where we had started filming before, was then not available at the times we wanted. This meant that even though we had already filmed half the footage we needed, we had to start over again. This also meant creating a brand new storyboard, and having to find a completely new set to film in. This disrupted us at the start, but we were able to see it as a learning experience, and vowed to plan more precisely in the future.

When we had found another area to shoot in, we got into our stride and started filming some good shots. The walking shots in our preliminary task we filmed quickly, with barely any hassle at all. Each group member was able to operate the camera and film some very professional looking shots.

As we moved into the main classroom for the main part of the task, we encountered some other slight problems. Some of these problems were simple and easy to fix, for example making sure the camera was on the tripod correctly, or making sure the camera was straight.

One other problem was that our tripod was brand new at the time, and was still very stiff, and some of us found it hard to use. This made panning shots tougher to operate, and these shots usually needed several takes before we got them right.
Another slight problem we had was getting our over-the-shoulder shots and shot-reverse-shots correct. Though easy to film once in place, getting the camera in the right position so that everything we wanted was in the shot proved tougher than we thought. After a few takes, and much camera adjusting, we got them right and were very happy with them.

One shot we were very proud of was our famous ‘punch’ shot, where one character punches another. Expecting this to take a long time and require many takes, we were pleasantly surprised when we were able to film it in one take. The camera movement, the punch and the fall were all performed perfectly and we were ecstatic that the shot came off just as we had hoped.

After filming had finished, we were confident that we had the right footage and would be able to edit our task correctly.

We also learnt many things from our preliminary task, which we can now carry forward and use when filming our thriller. One very important thing we learnt was to plan every shot thoroughly. This saves a lot of time when actually filming and allows us to know exactly what we have to do before we get to location and set up. This also will help our thriller film flow more, as it will allow us to think hard about the meanings of each shot and exactly why we are using them.

We also learnt to make sure to film more than enough footage, so that when back in the editing suite, we would be able to pick and choose from certain shots, and decide which were the best to use. We had seen previous years preliminary tasks, and many of them had not filmed enough footage, meaning that their preliminary was very jumpy and did not look professional at all. We want to avoid that at all costs. We also found that filming more takes than we needed was helpful, as it allowed us to choose from more than one shot when editing.

Shooting took longer than expected during our preliminary task, but this only occurred because we were not able to use our original setting. Had we been able to use that, we would have finished filming very quickly. Luckily, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we were able to contemplate exactly how we wanted to shoot our task, and we think this showed once it was complete.

If we had to do the preliminary task again, we would do a few things slightly differently. First, we would plan more. We would make sure our location was available when we wanted, and we would plan each camera shot thoroughly and in detail. This proved to be a slight problem for us and we will make sure that when filming our thriller, we plan everything to pinpoint detail.

We would also make sure that the dialogue spoken was clearer, and made more sense. This again came down to planning, as we only thought up the dialogue once on the set, and it seemed slightly rushed, even though it was simple.

Something else we would do differently would be to try out the camera and the tripod before filming, especially if the tripod was as stiff as ours was. This delayed us slightly, and when filming our thriller we will make sure our camera skills are perfect.

- Taylor Gladwin