Prelim Task - People Just Ain't No Good - Final Outcome

I worked with Beth Braine, Sam Craig and Ben Caleno.We split up the tasks between us, so that we shared the responsibility equally, for example, Sam found all of the music needed, Beth wrote the script, Ben wrote notes on the angles and camera shots and I drew the storyboard. We all brought props in to help film.

We planned our sequence by thinking of the stereotypical things you would find in an action, for example a good guy/bad guy combo, capes and violence. We then developed on these ideas and came up with the idea of a bullied girl at school who needs the help of a hero. We took into account Dyer's theory, as he believes stereotypes come down to power, those who have power stereotype those who don't, so in this instance I was stereotyped as the innocent, vulnerable girl who needed help.

We used a Sony HDR-CX190 HD to film it, Audicity to record the voice over in Sam's training montage. We used Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 to edit and cut the scenes together. When planning, shooting and editing we had to take into account the limited space we had, as we could only film on school campus. We then planned to film in three spaces: down by the lockers, on the playground and on the back field, by the gyms. We edited together in the classroom, each of us having a separate responsibility, for example I done the transitions, and Beth did the music, and then made sure everyone in the group was happy before we exported it.

I think our sequence was very successful as we all worked together and done what was necessary to make the filming run smoothly. The filming and editing went really well. In hindsight, we could  have used something like a trailer to hold the camera more steady to perfect shots like tracking. Also, there is one shot where Sam holds his hand out to help me up, and when the camera changes angle, he holds his hand out again. Small things like this need to be perfected if we were to do it again. The rest of the class thought our piece was comical, and we generally got good feedback, with constructive criticism to correct the shaky camera angles and the quality of the sound.

From completing the prelim task, I have learnt that team work is highly important and providing everyone a task within the production and editing helps to get everything done quickly and successfully. I think this task has significantly improved my editing and filming skills for the rest of my foundation coursework, as I have learnt how to include a lot of different shots into a long film by editing, add transitions, music and also work well with other people. Furthermore, I have learnt how to plan successfully and make sure every element of the sequence is considered within the planning, before we begin filming.