Prelim Evaluation - Question 1

1) 'Explain, in detail, the process you went through to create your prelim.'

Firstly, we began speaking about different ideas that we all initially thought of when we were told the prelim had to revolve around a conversation. We each had one idea that we first thought of, and we then explained in further detail our ideas to one another. We found that some of the ideas that we discussed were too complex for the task, and we all agreed that we wanted something that was more simple and straightforward. We ended up agreeing on the idea that became our prelim, so after the idea was agreed on, we began to storyboard and script the idea. We completed the script first, as we knew it wouldn't take long. Then when we moved onto the storyboard, we began to realise that this part of the process would be rather time consuming, as we all had specific, precise shots in mind for certain parts of the prelim. As we were creating the storyboard, we encountered no problems, as we were all aware of what shots had to be in the prelim.
After we completed the storyboard, we began to scout locations. We knew that, for our story, we had to find an office location, but the one we had in mind had been taken by a different group, and they were filming the same time that we were. We then continued on scouting to find a similar location, we then found one, and asked if we could use it as it wasn't owned by the school.
We originally had a certain teacher in mind to play the main part in our prelim, but they were busy, so we had to search around and find a teacher that had no lessons when we were filming. We eventually found a teacher, and we then began filming. When we entered the room, we all agreed that we wanted to do all of the shots where the teacher we were using was needed. So, we found all of the shots in the storyboard where the teacher was needed, told her what her lines were in the shot, and then told her the process we would have to go through each time we began filming. We filmed each shot she was in, and during one shot we had to think about the continuity. She had to write on a piece of paper, and the shot showed what she was writing down, so we had to make sure we got the shot correct the first time, or we would of had a problem when doing another take.
Another factor of continuity we had to consider was what she was wearing and how she had her hair, because we were going to have to film more on a different day, we had to ensure this was the same. One of the shots we filmed involved a third character, who i was originally playing, and we filmed this shot with myself in it. But then, the teacher who we originally wanted to play the main part, came in and told us he was available. So we agreed that we would make use of him and give him my part to play. So, we then had to re-film the shot i had done already, and then film the shots that the third character was needed for. This made the process all the more time consuming, but we dealt with it in the end. Whilst on location,we watched one shot back, and realised that we had left our books in a shot, but luckily enough, they had been left there during other shots, so we had no continuity problem there.
After we finished filming for that day, we realised that we still had a fair bit left to shoot. During the next lesson, we began to edit what we had already done. Thankfully, as a result of the editing, we were able to clearly see what was left to film, and also, during this process we realised that we had left out a shot we needed to have in the prelim. We discovered that we hadn't incorporated a 'shot counter shot', which was a key part of the prelim-as it showed the actual conversation. Although in that lesson, we did get alot of productive editing completed, we added in transitions from the last shot into the credits, and we also completed the transitions needed for the opening titles into the first shot. We also added in music where we had planned to in certain shots to add an atmosphere and to provoke certain reactions from the audience watching. The editing was very time consuming, but, as a group, we all thoroughly enjoyed the process. We did want to go off and try and film some of the remaining shots that required only the member of our group that was playing one of the characters, during that lesson, but we were unable to do this as the location was occupied and the camera we wanted to use had a low battery.
We then had to film during the next double lesson that we had the next day, and encountered problems. The location we originally shot in was occupied, so we instantly knew we shouldn't have chosen that room originally as we knew that there was no guarantee that we were always going to be able to have that room. We then went around searching for a room we could make look similar to the one we originally used. We found one, and we had already accepted the fact that the continuity of the location was going to be obvious to audience, but we couldn't do anything about it. So, we filmed what we needed to film, and arranged the room so it looked as similar as it could look to our original location. We then remembered that we needed to get a bit of paper for the teacher to write on, and after we sorted out everything we filmed the shots we needed to film and returned back to the lesson to finally complete the prelim by editing the new sections of film. We added in and edited the shots, and even though the change of location was clearly apparent, it didn't look as bad as we all thought it would.