Evaluation for the prelim task

I will be writing about what I thought was successful with my 1 minute short film and what was not so successful. I was able to see what things I learnt whilst planning, directing, producing and editing with different software. This will make me think about how I will go about my 5 minute short film. When creating the short film I found it very helpful as I can see what I will need to do in order to create a successful final piece.

Firstly, we needed to think about what we were going to film about the day in the life of... We liked the idea of a chef as we thought that we could make it quite entertaining and could make a short film quite different. We were thinking whilst storyboarding what scenes we could have and how we could create them whilst editing. After thinking about the chief we decided that it might be easier to use a student as it would help us when filming because of their free periods. However after talking about the idea with teachers and students we realised that the title of the film might be to difficult, we would have to hire out the kitchen, the equipment of a chief and to create a story with in it. Therefore we decided not to go with this and we brainstormed some more ideas including day in the life of a: student, teacher and then a drama teacher. As my friend who I was working with takes a level drama she thought that the drama teacher (who was crazy anyway) would be perfect to film and make a piece about that would be entertaining for an audience. We also had the advantage of the drama studio as a space which was more useful to film and the lights gave it a more professional setting. Along with the costumes that were already in the cupboard we created a storyboard that was very easy to put together. When in our lesson our teacher gave us a sheet of paper with 6 big boxes along with 6 underneath so we can write about what we wanted in each scene and things in terms of camerawork, (angles and shots). Storyboarding to me was one of the most important processes in the planning as it allows me to have a clear and sufficient pathway. If we didn't use a storyboard whilst creating the chief then we might of continued with the idea and it might not of worked. In the 6 boxes we drew what we wanted in each scene. When looking back at the storyboard there were things that changed and ideas that popped up so it was good that we had the storyboard to fall back on.
Box 1 - Entering the school 
Box 2- Walking through the school
Box 3- walking into the drama studio
Box 4- Creating facial expressions
Box 5- Reading Shaekspeare 
Box 6- Going through the drama door with different costumes
Box7- Unseen features

Then we went on to the filming. I believe that we spent a sufficient amount of time filming to create a well thought through piece with different shots that we could edit together to make the short film. We decided to make sure we had enough footage so we could pick and choose from our favourites, that was one of the main advantages from using the big room as we didn't get interrupted when filming. Some people didn't have enough footage which made it harder to try and find things to elongate the ilm to one minute. The only problem with the amount of footage that we had we couldn't fit it all into the 1 minute film if we did it would be 5 minutes long which was not the brief. We had to make sure that the actress we used was free and if we could use the space that we had in mind. Luckily she was free during our two free periods which was perfect as if we filmed on different days then she would be wearing different outfits that would make it confusing and not as professional as we hoped for. The two hours that we had where perfect as it was enough time to film the footage that we needed. However the only problem that we had was that one of our ideas was to film the children in the class but we didn't manage to find time to film this so we had to leave this out which was annoying as it didn't show the actual day in the life of a drama teacher. When choosing what we needed to film with we wondered whether to use my camera at home as I knew how to work it however this wasn't going to be the equipment that I would use for my short film and I needed as much practice as I could get. We therefore hired out a camera and a tripod for the two hours which was the best option as it was easy to get hold of and make sure that nobody else uses our footage or camera. Furthermore we had to think about where we were going to film and the locations as there would be different lighting etc. Through the school building we used the reception, the make up room, the corridor, the drama office and the costume room, the different locations around the school were good fun and then when it came to edit we were able to put them together smoothly. 

The worst part of the prelim task was the editing as Me and Aneisha didn't really have a clue when it came to the software and how to actually edit a professional looking short film together, we did do a small project called the cops but it was a while ago and there were a lot more of us. The first task was actually getting the footage onto the macs as it took along time and once we left it to load it didn't actually save to the computer so we had to do it again after 2 hours. Even though I have a mac and have used it to make my videos for my as level media work I still didn't really know the shortcuts for the keys so when asking it was a lot easier and I felt a lot more confident. I will probably use the same software for my main task as I have now got a lot more confident with it and changing it now will not allow me to use my time wisely. Most of my time was spent editing in order to to make it look professional, we played around with some different techniques which allowed us to use some different editing techniques which could be useful for our short film such as slow or fast paced motions. The only problem with that it was speeding up and slowing down too much so we had to try and resolve the problem and try to correct the issue by our selves. We also wanted some music over the top of the film as most of it was silent so we had to find some music on youtube and try and convert it however the website would not load so we had to use what was already on the macs so for future reference I will have to bring my own music to use. As well as having the music we decided to put a title at the start so we found a curtain which would go really well with the title a day in the life of a drama teacher.

Overall I think our short film did work well however there were problems during the task which we did solve. Thinking about the planning I will definatly use a storyboard to plan and think about the scenes and detail, I will also have to think about the software that I will use to make my editing skills less time consuming. The problems that I had whilst creating this were difficult to tackle however it made me want to make sure that I overcame the problems so I delivered a well produced film. I will next evaluate my short film in depth to make sure that I have delivered a good prelim task and ask on peoples opinions.