The preliminary task was a simple sequence following a character going through a door, to have a conversation with another character, filmed using the shot-reverse-shot technique. It also took minimal editing to make into a sequence; of course, my opening was much more complex than this, and particularly the editing, took a lot longer than that used in the preliminary.
One of the first things I learnt while creating my final piece was that it would take a lot more planning than the preliminary had done; for the preliminary exercise, there was hardly any planning involved, only the creation of a script and an ordering of events. We simply found two people from around school who were free, and told them what they had to do, and that was that. However, for my final piece, I needed to create detailed plans, mood boards, story boards, before even considering filming. I also had to find appropriate characters rather than pick the first person I saw. I have also discovered how hard it can be to coordinate people; this is one reason I am glad I only needed one main character; it was a lot easier to coordinate one person than it would have been to coordinate many.
In my preliminary task there was very minimal editing, something that changed drastically in my final piece. The preliminary only required cutting slightly and ordering, where my final piece needed a lot more work to make it something watchable. For example, I think I filmed around two hours of footage in all, perhaps more, of which two minutes was actually used. This is partially due to the speeding up of some film for effect, but also because there were many scenes that I couldn't use because of some outside circumstances affecting the effectiveness of each shot. This wasn't a problem because I had a lot of footage, but had I had much less, I expect the opening wouldn't look as it does. Another new thing I used in my final piece was shot transitions, which play quite a large part in my final piece; basically, everything that goes into the editing of the opening I learnt whilst creating it.
Audio is another aspect I feel I have learnt a lot about; it is quite amazing how much effect the soundtrack has on the overall feel of a piece. Even if I had used a similar song by the same artist, it would not have had the same effect. I also had to take out audio from the actual film in my opening, which is another thing I didn't have to do in the preliminary task.
I've also learnt about the importance of the visuals in a piece like mine; they weren't very important in the preliminary, given the simplicity of the task, but they make up all of the content in the final piece, and as such the positioning of my main character, the actual setting, and the way in which I filmed a shot was all a huge amount more significant. Creating a piece purely based on visuals and on constant sound track has allowed me to realise how much can be implied or communicated through images alone; as such, I've learnt about the importance of good quality camerawork, and interesting shots that hold the attention of the audience. Also included in the visuals is the mise-en-scene of the piece, which is a huge contributor to the mood of the product, and another thing that makes the visuals of any piece so important.
I have also discovered in better depth how to use the video sharing sites such as Youtube and Vimeo, and I have discovered how invaluable they can be when creating a project like this, from planing the piece to broadcasting it to the entirety of the internet.
In all, I have learnt so much from creating my final piece that I wouldn't have considered in creating the preliminary task, from the actual camerawork through to the editing process, and sharing the outcome.
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