Evaluation -Q7

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

Looking back at my preliminary task I believe that I have improved on many skills over this short period of time. My preliminary movie was pretty basic, it did not have any exciting factor to it for example there was not any exciting or unique editing skills or camera skills being shown which made my prelim look extremely boring and repetitive.
The new skills that I have learnt and applied are shown in my final media product. I think that I have learnt how to take good establishing and close up shots, also i have improved on my editing skills however i think that i can still work on it because editing for me was very tricky because I did not how to use certain applications therefore i refrained from using them for example after effects.
Before my prelim i had very little knowledge on filming and the different type of camera shots because I had never studied media studies before therefore my prelim was not produced to the best of my abilities. In my prelim there was no sound track included which made it boring to watch also the type of shots involved in the prelim were pretty basic, there were many close up shots etc however in my new media product there are various different shots ranging from establishing shots to extreme close up shots. My prelim was  of poor quality. i was very laid back during my prelim and  did not put much effort into it. My prelim did not included title orders however my final media product did even though the title orders were very simplistic

During the production of our final product i had to put my creative skills to work by coming up with unique ideas in order to make this horror movie as successful and unique as possible. For example we tried to challenge stereotypical ideologies surrounding horror movies. first of all we did this by replacing the typical blonde, tall, female character for a short, asian character who is of small build. we also had to come up with location ideas to film in, and we had limited options, one of the options was a classroom and we had to use lighting and props such as material to make a bright classroom look like a dull, isolated, location in a deserted place. This was very important in our movie because we had to make it look as if the female character had been abducted and as if she is in danger from the villain.
Before filming we had produced a list including all the different types of shots we were planning to film in order to create a unique media product, this list contained various different shots such as extreme close up, medium shot, establishing shots and over the shoulder shots. We had also created a storyboard to ensure that members of the group knew exactly what was gonna happen in the film, this further helped us to keep on track with filming because we knew what we were going to film for every lesson we filmed, we knew the type of shots that we were aiming to take therefore timing was not a big issue for us as we did not waste time each lesson planning what to film as it was already in the storyboard.
We also created a draft time table in which certain aspects of filming needed to be completed for example filming dates and editing dates were included within the timetable to help us with time management however some times we did fall behind which later resulted in us having to re schedule filming dates. We continuously blogged each task in the beginning, we were on track with each blog task however a couple of weeks into the production of our media product we did fall back with blogging as we realised it is extremely time consuming and because we had so many unfinished blog task it was extremely hard for us to catch up.

Here is our draft filming schedule.

Date	Time	Footage	Crew	Location
03/12/2015	20 minutes	Girls (Saima’s character) has been kidnapped. Various weapons and bloodstained props.	Saima Omari Erykah Rizwana	City and Islington 6th Form (Dark Room 333)
04/12/2015	25 minutes	The young girl’s reaction and facial expressions.	Saima Rizwana Erykah	CandI 6th Form (Dark Room 333)
06/12/2015	15 minutes	Girl running away. Scary figure appearing (Omari’s character).	Omari Rizwana Saima	Hackney Springfield Park
08/12/2015	10 minutes	The scenery of the park- bushes, shrubs trees etc.	Omari Rizwana Saima Erykah	Owens Field Park
16/12/2015	10 minutes	Close up shot of blood dripping. Close up shot of moving chair	Omari Rizwana Saima Erykah	CandI 6th Form (Dark Room 333)
05/01/2016	20 minutes	The girl’s (Saima’s character) facial expressions. Various extreme close up shots of her features.	Erykah Saima	Candi 6th Form (Dark Room)
08/01/2016	10 minutes	Various bloodstained weapons and materials.	Erykah Rizwana Omari	Candi 6th Form (Dark Room)

 We explored different locations in order to find the perfect filming spot for our horror movie, we filmed inside the college as well as filming outside. In college we filmed the scenes in which we made a classroom look like a abandoned area where the female character was going to be held hostage.initially we had planned to film the outdoor scenes in Owens Field which was quite local to the college, however after looking at the place carefully we realised it was not the best place to film as it was a public park and many members of the public were walking back and forth therefore there would have been disruption during filming scenes, so we decided to film the outdoor scenes in Springfield Park, Hackney.
When it came to costumes we had decided the male character (villain) will wear a black bomber jacket (leather if possible), indigo blue jeans with black trainers/boots (white trainers can be acceptable too) we decided to stick to dull clothing as we wanted to portray the male character as a serious person who dresses in dark clothing as it matches their personality. We decided the female character will wear a bright top (burnt range colour) and tartan trousers because this type of clothing will make her seem like a college student, exactly what we were aiming for as she was a college student who had been kidnapped by a psycho serial killer, and she goes on the run trying to escpae from this dangerous villain hence why we name the movie "The Escaping'.
Props was a significant factor in our film especially seeing as our film was of horror genre. We decided to use a knife and a hammer looking weapon because we thought it would look good when filming scenes in which these dangerous looking props were involved.

  Arranging travel was pretty easy for my team as we all leaved quite local. Myself, Rizwana and Omari met up on a Saturday in Hackney to film he outdoor scenes, unfortunately Erica could not attend due to personal reasons however this did not effect our filming as we managed without her. Rizwana and Omari took part in filming scenes of me escaping and we all took part in carrying the filming resources/equipment. I took home the fig rig, Rizwana took home the cam corder and Omari took home the tripod.
I believe i have developed many skills during the production stage, for example my filming techniques improved as by this stage i was available to take a good establishing shot as well as a good extreme close u shot, however my filming techniques were still a little poor as i kept on shaking when recording further leading to poor shots which could not be use in our film therefore Omari took over and filmed the scenes I could not film.
We kept our titles very simple, as were were aiming for a very simplistic tile order. People in our target audience we believe would have appreciated if our title order was like this because they are old and mature enough and we thought by adding a animated title order will bore them therefore we did what we thought we would enjoy if we were watching a horror movie and we all agreed we preferred a basic title order instead of one which is animated. Editing in premiere pro was pretty difficult because i did not know the different functions also editing was very time consuming and because Omari was familiar with editing he took over and completed and fixed up on the scenes that needed editing.
In my Prelim there was no editing being done neither were there any title credits which made it seem even more boring however the final media product had edit, we used a editing software called premiere pro which helped us edit our clips for example we used match cut, filters and effect which made our film.
Our teamwork was great as we kept in touch through social media (whatsapp group chat) in order to find out if anyone was absent or if anyone was going to be late this also helped during time management. this was something we did not tend do during our Prelim because our Prelim was made in a short period of time wehereas our final media product was made within two months therefore we had to have god team work and good communication skills.
i believe that i was fairly successful with most products. Some more than others.
The skills i was most succesful in:
-Filming
-Taking camera shots
-time managmnet
-organistaion skills
-communiation skills
-team work
I beleive i worked very hard for the final media product when compared to the Prelim tehrefore many of my skills had improved and developed immensely.

what would i change:
-location
-props (damaged clothing to make the horror movie more realistic)

i can now do various of thimngs such as
Filming
-Taking camera shots
-time managmnet
-organistaion skills
-communiation skills
-team work
something whcih i could not have done before the prelim.