My preliminary exercise was my first go at anything of this nature - I had worked on film sets before as a camera trainee but never used the specific cameras we used or how to work in a group of this size - I was much more used to groups of 30+ than the 2 we had. This was a useful exercise for me as I knew that I would be working with the same people in the actual thing, which gave me an opportunity to understand how the group dynamic played out and how each of our roles would affect the way we worked together.
I was already fairly experienced in use of camera and editing equipment, having used a variety of cameras and being proficient in a range of softwares from Premiere Pro and After Effects to Garageband, some of which we used for our final media product. However, I did not know how to use the sound equipment at all, and the preliminary task helped with this somewhat although I still did not learn how to use all the equipment until we got to recording the foley sound separately - it was only then that I realised how to set levels etc. for proper sound recording.
I think the preliminary exercise was really too short for learning all of this properly. It is for this reason that our media studies teacher set us an extra task, called The Package. The brief was to make a short 2-3 minute film about taking a package somewhere, which had to create tension. During this task, I managed to lose the SD card with all our data, which meant we had to reshoot - my group weren't very happy, but at least it meant we wouldn't make that mistake again! This taught me the importance of proper data management, and to always have backups! For our final media product, we made sure to back up all of our footage to an offline storage location in case of system failure, so that we wouldn't have to reshoot or re-edit.
For our final media product I had to learn a number of special effect techniques including how to efficiently execute the pleasantville effect - the red highlighted against the black and white. I had previously learnt how to do this a number of ways, but all were immensely time consuming. The method we settled for was least time consuming of the few I knew, but still took up most of the time in post processing as there was no way to perfectly match the range of colours we needed for her coat.
I also had to learn how to use our Steadicam-style stabiliser, as I had not had very much experience in using them, especially without an arm and vest, which made it a lot harder to use than I was used to. Hence (if you look carefully) some of our shots are at a very slight dutch angle, unintentionally. However, this would have been much worse at the time of our preliminary exercise as you can see from this shot from The Package - bearing in mind this was on a tripod!
My partner handled most of the organisation for this project, although it was useful for me to see what she was doing and how she achieved it, as she seemed to be very proficient in this area. It was interesting to learn her techniques for storyboarding and making a shot list, a part of film production I had not really been involved in before.
The preliminary task was very useful for my development as a filmmaker, as I could see easily the areas in which I needed to improve and subsequently worked with my peers to create a finished product which I am genuinely proud of.
