The Process of Production

Pre-Production

 

Upon being given the preliminary task, we formed our group and began brainstorming for ideas. Initially we didn’t digress from the typical idea of simply walking in to a room, spewing a few lines of conversation and leaving it at that. We then had the idea of having a conversation through a wall, but that was disregarded when one member jokingly mentioned doing an “Inception-esque” approach of having a “prelim within a prelim”. We then build upon that; fleshed it out somewhat through discussion and producing a script shortly thereafter. An issue arose when we wrote the script, because some of the ideas we had had previously were lost as they weren’t noted immediately after. This made our end-result somewhat less exciting as we’d hoped.

 

There were also a lot of changes and omissions following the drafting of the script, and as such it became somewhat confusing. This wasn’t a major concern however. 

 

Before filming, we produced a storyboard, and whilst it was vague it did give us a rough idea of what we wanted to achieve. Our storyboard and final product do differ, however, as we found that sticking to the storyboard to strictly was unwise, and more creativity was found within the production of the prelim than was found in pre-production.

 

We also watched some example videos from previous years; some good, some bad. From these we learned that even if your ‘story’ idea is awful, you don’t lose marks, something that can be applied to the main thriller task. We noted that editing is the most important thing. Keeping continuity and varying shots mad even the most awful prelims bearable, and in doing so also achieves more marks. There were multiple instances of students who hadn’t got the editing right when opening a door and entering a room, which really does throw the viewer off.  We’ll use this information in the main task, and focus more on getting the right shots and editing it correctly than we will story writing. 

 

We also spoke to year 13 media students that had completed the task the previous year and obtained advice from them. They told us things like “be inventive” and to be prepared to “take criticism”. They made it clear that the prelim would likely not be very good, but also that it would benefit us as it would highlight areas that we need to work and improve on for the thriller. They also gave the advice of not following storyboards too quickly, something that we took in to account and used during our preliminary task. Their biggest piece of advice, however, was to use common sense. Things like framing and composition were necessary and often at the front of our minds, but things such as battery life and memory space weren’t. They made it clear that we’d need to pay attention to little things such as these as if overlooked they could ruin an entire days shooting. We kept all of this in mind when it came to shooting our prelim, however none if it became an issue and filming went relatively smoothly in the end. However, their advice won’t be lost once it comes to planning, filming and editing our main task.

Sean Cleary

Production

As we did not have much time to create the prelim we did not put much time into working out what problems we would encounter, because of this we did have to overcome a few problems that we ran into when filming. Of course none of us are amazing actors and we don’t have much of a background in creating ‘short films’ therefore none of us were prepared. Some of the issues we ran into we just small things like people moving out of the frame. Also the fact that we were using a camera phone really affected the outcome of our video but really it was all just a matter of controlling our immaturity!

Because none of us really took the filming seriously we were all joking around and laughing. This meant that rather than taking 3 to 4 scene takes, we ending up having to take millions! Even still we did not take enough decent footage to create an impressive prelim video. However the issues we faced during the filming and editing eventually will only help to make our thriller opening a strong production. We will concentrate more on making sure we are not looking into the camera and that we remain in the centre of the shot and will remain focused. We will also be more aware of our surroundings to make the clip as authentic as possible. This will involve cutting out any background noise that is non-digetic and checking around to make sure our surrounding corresponds with our thriller. For example if we decide to film something based in the 1800’s we will have to make sure we don’t leave anything that would we out of era. When we moved the filming into the common room we also had the problem of background noise. Although background noise can help create the atmosphere and we will definitely look into using such a technique in our thriller, the noise we encountered actually drowned out the dialogue in our prelim. Even though our prelim was not the most fantastic video, we now have a good idea of the direction we will take towards creating our thriller. If we had to re make our prelim and do the whole thing again we would definitely take certain problems we encountered on board to make sure we give our prelim a more professional look. We would also give ourselves more time to plan which would then allow us to come up with a more interesting storyline and also a better production all together we would also get hold of a better camera. During the editing we would allow more time to sort out any mistakes which in turn could allow us to re film any scenes that we were not happy with. After watching other people's prelims we decided that adding music helped create a better atmosphere in the clip and if we had to do ours again we would most definitely add some music.

Our prelim was rushed however as a group we are all happy with the outcome we managed to produce however our prelim won't be able to hold a candle to our thriller clip when it is made.

Louise Cormack

Post production

The biggest issue I had for editing involved technology; as we recorded the clips off of a phone it was hard to transfer them on to another device. Originally, we were going to send them to Sean but problems came up and we couldn’t send them, we it but it didn’t work until the night before the deadline. It took a good hour for most of the clips to download on to my laptop. Once they had finished downloading and then put on to Windows Live Movie Maker I found that they were an unsupported format therefore couldn’t play. I then transferred the clips on to my brother’s laptop which was an updated version of the Windows software; everything ran smoothly once I’d figured out how to actually use Movie Maker. This is very important as we don’t want another technological disaster when we need to edit our thriller opening; we should make sure we know exactly how to use our technology, that the formats are all the same and that we know how to transfer all footage in the first place so that we spend less time fixing and more time editing.

Problems during the editing were clarity of videos and movement with the camera because they were filmed on a phone and we didn’t use equipment such as a tripod. Another problem with using a phone is that the sound quality was not great, we filmed in class rooms during lesson time to ensure that we wouldn’t have background noise but our last scene was filmed in our school common room and there was a lot of loud background noise from people talking and you can’t keep continuity on that because you can’t get everyone to repeat what they say for every take. I think this is valuable information to carry to the thriller because you need to be aware of your surroundings and all the potential noise in the background because it has the potential to spoil the clip. For example, if you’re filming near a road or near houses you don’t want people talking in the background or a car beeping and realising too late and having to go back and film another day. This is a hassle because you would have to have all the conditions the same (e.g. the weather, setting of props, costume, layout, etc.) for continuity.

There was a problem with continuity with dialogue and movement, for example, in one shot Sean brushes his hair back and speaks and then we film another angle and he does the same thing although his dialogue and movement weren’t the same. It was really difficult to match these, I spent minutes clicking seconds to cut forwards and then backwards in the clip in order for it too match up. This is important because we can’t break continuity, if one moment you’re walking forward in a clip with your left leg from another angle it can’t be your right leg; it will make the thriller seem amateur and not like a serious production.

It is very important to get a lot of footage when filming, there’s no such thing as enough, the more choice you have the better because you will have a variety to choose from, for example the lighting could be of a better quality in one clip than another or you could try different angles and shots for scenes to make sure you get the most out of your location. This is all good for editing because you will be able to choose the clips that look the most professional.

Overall I think that the prelim was useful as it gave me a chance to learn how to use the technology and software that will be required for our main thriller meaning it will take us less time and I will be able to do a better job having practised before. We got some feedback from the year 13 students who did this all last year; they thought we had continuity and they saw the correct techniques; 180 degree rule, match cut and shot reverse shot, they thought it flowed; they could see small errors with the actual footage itself such as the clarity and sound quality but overall they said it was good. One thing they did say is not to use silly transitions after they saw we used a speed change at the end of the prelim as when used inappropriately it can look amateur and silly.

As a group we wrote down many ideas for how we wanted our prelim to go, we wanted to create ‘Prelimception’; ‘a prelim within a prelim’ was the initial idea and we got that as our ending result. We created a storyboard of how we wanted it to be set out and we followed it exactly. Although, when the Year 13’s came into our lesson to give us some advice and tips they said you don’t have to follow a strict structure, test out what you want while you’re there filming because it may be better than your original idea.

Danielle Ranaghan