Preliminary Task 1:
The purpose of this task was to begin to apply our micro element knowledge to a practical project. We worked in small groups of three and were given the prompt of “You haven’t left the house in months. If you don’t leave today, you never will”. With this prompt we had to create a concept for a 30 second scene of a film and complete a pitch for the film. In this task we brainstormed ideas, made a mood board, created a storyboard and then made and presented our pitch. Through this task I learnt that I work well in a group and that I am able to contribute ideas to the group confidently and with detail. Our audience feedback was that they would watch the film, but the overall story board was hard to understand and visulise as there was no drawings of what the shots would look like. because of this feedback, in future I need to help take part in creating the story board and taking the initiative to draw it. In the next preliminary task where we create a concept and film it, I want to focus on story boarding.
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Story Board:
Overall Story Board
Explanation of shot 4
Explanation of shot 6
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Preliminary Task 2: Pre-Production
For this task we are creating a one-minute film in groups of 4. Our prompt includes the following criteria: must include dialogue of “He’s gone”, must include a prop of significance, and there must be some kind of unanswered question. After brainstorming ideas based on this prompt my group and I decided to incorperate the medical condition Dementia within the mystery genre. We then divided up our pre-production tasks and I worked with Cody on creating a mood board and storyboard for our piece.
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Preliminary Task 2: Filming
For our short scenes, we had decided to film in the busy bean cafe located at Pinehurst School. This is because it fitted within our storyline . I planned for my responsibility during this part of the process to be acting and helping with the directing. I found the filming process to be really engaging and made me form close bonds with my group members such as Jackson and Josh. However, our fun also was a bit of a distraction due to us trying not to laugh at some points. This was ultimately overcome by using strategies we learnt from our mentors and peers, such as reminding ourselves that this is a serious cambridge preliminary, which would provide us with robust courses of action and areas to work on in our real coursework. This reinforced that we should take this seriously, for this to be useful later on. Based on my experiences, something I want to do differently during my coursework piece
⋆˚𖥔 ݁ ˖𓂃.☘︎ ݁˖⋆˚𖥔 ݁
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Preliminary Task 2: Editing and Final Cut
For my personal edit of our footage, I decided to use capcut because I was already familiar with the software and I wanted to make sure that my first attempt was not convoluted or difficult to achieve. I am pleased with my final outcome as it effectively explains the storyline while also representing the problem of dementia conveyed within the piece. I also liked my use of black and white colour grading during parts of the scene which emphasised the confusion of the main character and emphasise the point that something is not right, making it easier for this concept to be grasped by audience members . Within my piece I was proud of my efficiency when completing the task and i was also proud of my usage of colour grading and sound distortion effects as well as my general use of sound effects. Something that I found challenging was, deciding on an editing software to use for this edit, as I started the process by experimenting with different softwares such as imovie, however I took my time deciding on which one would be easiest and most efficient for me to use. From this task I have learnt that I should take this seriously and help put more input of my ideas into the work by taking initiative and making a decision for the group.
My Finale Edit
My group and I all shared our personal edits and decided on Jackson ‘s one to showcase to the class. We liked this cut the best because Jackson was able to overcome some of the technical difficulties we faced when filming our piece, by editing them out, which I and members in our group were not able to do, for example, because we had to use our phones to record, unlike other groups who were able to use the camera and mic equipment provided, the sound quality of the piece was bad and the raw footage could barley pick up on what we were saying, however, in jacksons edit, the dialogue is completely clear due to his extensive editing process.