Coursework Evaluation Q7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your full product?

With our preliminary task, there was very little planning. Because of this, we were not able to do as much as we could have if we had enough preparation. I wanted to make sure that this did not happen with our coursework because it would have a big affect on the final video. We therefore did many things such as:

• We considered a few different people for the roles, and planned when to film to suit them all.
• We looked at locations before deciding some of the shots (so we could work the camera work around it).

Timekeeping when making a film turned out to be quite difficult, but we have learnt techniques such as those involving planning above, that allow it to be easier. With our video, we planned many weeks in advance of the filming days to make sure that we did not rush the filming before it needed to be done.

I also feel that I have learnt many things about the technologies that have been used in the process. Before the preliminary task, I had never before used After Effects or Premiere Pro, but after testing skills when creating my film company logo and editing the preliminary task, I now know much more about the editing process and I believe that I am becoming quite good at piecing a video together.

The equipment that we used to film our video was also made up of things that I had not used before. The moving tripod, shoulder mount, and a few other pieces of camera equipment were all new to me. These made the filming more interesting than just having a basic camera and tripod. The camera that we used was mine. We chose this over the school cameras because after looking at the specifications of each camera online, we came to the conclusion that mine would produce videos of a better quality. Unfortunately, it did not make a difference as the software available tended to automatically lower the quality of our videos. To combat this, we put the settings in the best possible combination for our video, and the quality ended up being still average.

As much as the whole editing may have seemed like a waste of time (because we used Luke's edit), I think that it has helped me to learn the necessary skills that will help me in future projects, such as next years.

To conclude, I have learnt quite a bit from the progression of my preliminary task to my full product. The new knowledge, skills, and abilities will be able to help me with my many more projects to come.