Rachel Iliffe - Question 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Question 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

The improvement I have gone through since our preliminary task is immense. The transitions were greatly considered after problems with the preliminary task making the clips work together. The shot compositions were also much more thought out.

These two shots are next to each other in the video, creating continuity in the placement of the elevator, which makes it look much better.
In the preliminary, none of the shots are well planned, making it look messy and resulted in shots like this:

Not only is it bad quality, it also includes the tripod in the shot by accident, and this is not the only time that happens.

In the preliminary, we didn’t have any special shots, it was all very similar throughout the whole video, focussing more on dialogue, which turned out as a mistake, as we managed to miss out a very important clip which we couldn’t solve in editing. In D.N.A, there is no dialogue at all, and I (as I was the one filming) could focus more on the different shots and effects without worrying about getting the conversation correct, as well as using other equipment such as the tracks to get smoother shots.

As for editing the preliminary, we just stuck the different clips together in the necessary order and put a small music clip on it at one point; very dull, very simple, with a boring result. Since then, my editing has improved drastically. Because I did the entire clip editing for the media task, as well as the animating, I spent a long time learning how to do it, and improving my ability in creating the movie. I improved my filming, which I had previously been unable to do, as I didn’t have a great understanding of how to keep the camera steady, or how to frame the shots. I learnt how to do that as I filmed the movie, and my ability increased along with the clips.

As I edited, I spent a lot of time improving my skills in clip, frame, music and title editing, helped along by the importance of working towards a deadline, so I had to apply my knowledge and expand on it in order to create a good title sequence by the arrival of the deadline. Being introduced to new technologies helped, like Adobe After Effects, so that I wasn’t left to create a simple opening with pre-set titles.