1. EVALUATION 7
What Have I Learnt?
Throughout the process of creating a film opening, from creating ideas to the finishing
touches I have learnt a lot about media. I have developed skills in many areas such as
editing, filming and even directing at certain points.
Not only have I developed my skills in my particular role but other roles at times where
I was needed and therefore i have gained a very well balanced set of skills to help me
further into the media world and understand more for the future.
2. EDITING
• Before I started editing, I knew very little. I had never used Adobe
Premiere CS6 and we shot the footage, not knowing what we would
do with it. I then watched youtube videos and experimented with the
program to try and find different things to do. I shortly found out how
to work the program on a basic level. My editing skills then developed
and I also learnt how to synchronise the music and the footage as I
volunteered to take up this role. Editing is very creative so it also
brought out my creative side more and I contributed to the group and
gave many suggestions to what we could do with the editing. The
main point that I came up with was the idea to use a CCTV shot which
worked very well and we have got very positive feedback on.
3. 180 DEGREE RULE
• We used the 180 degree rule quite strictly as we only had one shot
which did not use the 180 degree rule and this was an exception to
create an atmosphere at the start where the car drives over the
camera and we see the shot from two completely opposite angles.
Apart from this we kept to the 180 degree rule as we felt that it
improves the footage due to it being a basic guideline regarding the
on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another
character or object.
4. STORYBOARDS
• The storyboards that we had to write at the start of the process
seemed extremely irrelevant and a waste of time whilst doing them
but I soon came to understand just how important they were. On the
day that we were filming, things were a lot more intense and our
minds were less relaxed and focused. If we forgot certain details, we
could just look at our storyboards to remind us what we planned to
do. This also gave the actors a visual idea of what they had to do and
how we planned to shoot the footage, rather than attempting to
explain all of our ideas verbally.
5. Extra Filming
• We were advised from the start to film excessive amounts of footage
as we will need to choose the best piece of footage and use that as
there would be bloopers and fails throughout. On the day of filming,
it was very tedious to film one scene over and over again and I did
think it was a waste of time as it felt like we had filmed the scenes
perfectly most times. However when it came to editing the footage,
many mistakes were spotted in a lot of the scenes and I'm extremely
glad that we did film so many times or we would have had footage
which we weren't too happy with. I now know for the future how vital
it is to film everything multiple times just so that you can be happy
when it comes to the final product.
6. Camera Shots And Functions
• We used many different camera shots to emphasise certain parts of
the video, such as the stealth of the protagonist. We followed him
and always shot behind him to make sure that we gave a point of
view so that it looks like you can secretely see everything. The use of
the CCTV camera shot creates a mysterious atmosphere as the scene
clearly involves something illegal and you are watching it from a CCTV
point of view as if you were lucky enough to see it on the one camera
that caught the footage. The use of the camera being driven over by
the car causes the protagonist to seem more professional as he seems
very skilled and gives the audience a thrill as they are being driven
over. This creates an atmosphere for the rest of the film.
7. Detail
• Detail is something that I gradually found was of more and more
importance. No matter how good the idea, if the quality is bad it won't be
good. The quality and specification of the footage is the most important
thing. Whilst we were shooting, many times we had to do the scene again
as the tiniest thing wasn't perfect but little errors can make a huge
difference. Whilst sharing our ideas with our class and watching other
people's film openings I realised how important it was to have the best
quality and detail you can. It was easy to spot rushed footage and see the
difference between scenes that had taken hours to film compared to those
that had taken minutes. Detail is extremely important, if not the most
important thing whilst shooting and it is the one guideline that you should
always stick to as it determines the quality of the film.
