Media evaluation, Question 7

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

2. How our knowledge of Films has improved since our Preliminary Task
At the beginning of our AS Media course, we thought we knew about films, and
how they were made, but as time went on we realised that we did not know
anything about all the different things that went into the creation of a film. In our
preliminary task, we thought that we could record all of our film in half an hour and
that the film would look very good, but little did we know that our preliminary task
would look very poor and boring due to the lack of effort put into our preliminary
task. During the course, we learnt about everything to do with films such as the
effort that the production team put into the films that they make and everything that
is needed in a film such as the knowledge of each shot, how that shot is going to
be filmed and where etc. We used this knowledge in our opening sequence as we
put a lot of effort into the filming and took our time with filming such as re-doing
shots that we did not like, we took a lot of time editing our opening sequence as
the editing was a long process of finding which shots we wanted to use and to
discard the other shots. Overall our knowledge of films has rapidly increased from
our preliminary task to our opening sequence in a very good way as we now could
create an opening sequence with all the conventions a film should include in the
opening sequence.
Short video,
lacking originality.
Preliminary Task
Our Opening Sequence
Longer video,
amazing ideas

3. During the creation of our preliminary task, as a group we did not
have any knowledge of what an opening sequence was. Not
knowing what an opening sequence was, we did not know the
audience’s expectation of what kinds of things to include in our
preliminary task which is reflected when we watch back our
preliminary task today. Our knowledge of opening sequences has
gone from not knowing anything about them to knowing every tiny
detail of what opening sequences need to include. Knowing things
about opening sequences really helped us with the creation of our
opening sequence as we had taken inspiration from other peoples
opening sequences such as the film ‘Se7en’ and put ideas in on
what we think should be included within an opening sequence. Our
skills have improved rapidly as we now know what things we need
to include into an opening sequence to meet the audience
expectation and to make the audience interested in the opening
sequence and then they will want to watch the rest of the film. As
we now have the knowledge of what an opening sequence was, we
could easily create any opening sequences if we knew the
audience expectation of the film
How our knowledge of Opening Sequences has improved since our
Preliminary Task
Preliminary Task
Our Opening Sequence
No clear
conventions,
boring
background
Clear conventions,
mysterious
background.

4. During the making of our preliminary task, as a group we had
very little knowledge on technology. We already knew how to do
things such as record on a camera and simple knowledge of how
to use an iMac, so our preliminary task was very basic and simple
as we did not have the skills to create an amazing task during our
preliminary work. Throughout the duration of our AS course, we
learnt how to use these things by doing things such as analysing
opening sequences using the iMac’s and filming things such as
all the different camera angles really helped with our knowledge
of technology. As our knowledge of technology had developed,
we could use this knowledge in the making of our opening
sequence. We now knew how to add titles on top of our opening
sequence, adding music, transitions etc. This resulted in our
opening sequence becoming a lot better than our preliminary
work as the ability of adding things such as music made our
opening sequence a lot more interesting and appealing for the
audience to enjoy.
How our knowledge of Technology has improved since our Preliminary
Task
Preliminary Task
Our Opening Sequence
No effects,
just video.
Effects,
Music
and
Video

5. How our knowledge of Group Work has improved since our Preliminary
Task
Our group work at the beginning when we were creating our
Preliminary Task was very poor. When coming up with ideas, we
all wanted to do different things and half of our created
storyboards whilst the other half of us did not do anything all
lesson. Creative differences were clearly the issue within our
preliminary task, due to our preliminary task not having a clear
storyline and all of the shots looked exactly the same. As we went
through the course, our group work has improved. Although we
continue to disagree about different ideas and sharing pieces of
work, we have improved our group work drastically. Whilst working
on our opening sequence, for the majority of the time we have
shared out the work that needed to be completed and we all
played a part in recording, editing and uploading our opening
sequence to our blogs. From working in a team we have gained
the ability to not argue about different ideas but we have learnt
to put all of our ideas together to make our work better.
Our Opening Sequence
Preliminary Task
Messy Shots,
no sense of
storyline, lack
of communication.
Clear Storyline,
Lots of team work.

6. How our knowledge of Time Management has improved since our
Preliminary Task
Whilst creating our preliminary task, we did not have any
idea of how much work we needed to do in the time that we
had. We left our work until the last minute to be completed
which shows when looking back at our preliminary task. Our
preliminary task looked very basic with simple shots which
could of easily been improved if we had more knowledge of
how to use our time wisely. Throughout the process of
recording, editing and uploading our opening sequence, our
group found different ways how we could use our time
effectively such as taking time in an entire day to shoot our
opening sequence. This has an impact on our overall
opening sequence as we did not have to rush around last
minute trying to film every shot that we needed to do before
the deadline. Our opening sequence had a positive impact
due to our time management as we managed to film
everything to the best of our ability and edit our opening
sequence the way that we wanted to without having to rush
our final opening sequence.
Preliminary Task
Our Opening Sequence
Rushed,
No time plan.
Filming schedule
created, time used
effectively.

7. How our knowledge of the roles involved in film production has
improved since our Preliminary Task
During the making of our preliminary task, we did not have the knowledge of the kinds of roles that
are involved in the film production, so we worked as a group on every single aspect that was
needed to create our preliminary task. We all worked together which took a long time to complete
each task as we all got in each others ways when trying to complete a task. Throughout the
duration leading up to the creation of our opening sequence, as a group we discovered that by
sharing out the tasks that we needed to complete, our work would be more beneficial as it would all
be completed on time and to better ability if we all had some kind of work to be getting on with,
such as at first we all wanted to record the shots in the preliminary task, but by splitting up the roles
such as putting a certain person in charge of recording, scripting etc. we completed the work
quicker and easier than we did during our preliminary task. Our knowledge of the roles involved in
the film production helped us make the creation of our preliminary task much easier and quicker
than the creation of our preliminary task did.