Review pre production of a digital media product 

 

Introduction

As a team we were asked to plan and produce a thriller film opening. The film opening would be around 4 minutes long and include the opening credits, introduction to characters and the title. I worked as part of a group however I understood my individual role to help the team which was editing and directing.

 

Onset of the project 

During our first meeting, we discussed the basic storyline of the whole film which lay the foundations for the opening. We also decided on characters, props, music and setting. We decided that the plot for the film would be; a man who has had a traumatic past which led him to becoming a woman and luring men in and consequenting killing them. The film would be a crime thriller which would show the detective side of the story and the killers side.  We decided the props would be very limited as its only a film opening, therefore the only real prop we needed was a murder weapon which we decided would be an axe. The costumes would be normal clothes that teenagers would wear which is an easy choice yet effective. Our team meetings were very proactive and effective. All of our team members were proactive and helpful as much as they could be and working to the best of their abilities.  Each team member had their roles to do and we all did them successfully to the best of their abilities. We all worked together in the project and this had a positive effect on the production. 

 

Research and creative process

Intillay when planning the film opening, we researched the thriller genre as a whole and then researched sub genres. We had many options in which sub genre we were going to be making. These included; crime, medical, erotic and horror. We understood that if our film opening was going to be successful, we needed to research further.  We did this by viewing thriller films and looking at the way that they did the film openings and how we can take inspiration from them.  Overall, our research into the production was very helpful and purposeful as we have taken examples from other film openings and used it as inspiration for our opening. During our planning and research, we created many useful resources. The first resource we created was a script. The script allowed us to practise the scenes and understand what our roles were during the filming. Another resource we used was a storyboard. The storyboard allowed us to plan out the scenes in picture form which helped a lot when filming. Another resource we used was a location recce.  The locations recce allowed us to take a look at the setting that we were going to be filming and getting a grip of the surroundings. 

 

Logistics 

During the pre production process we had several logistical issues that we needed to overcome and some we couldn’t.  One of these issues was the coronavirus pandemic. This posed many large issues in our filming and we had no control over them. We had the November lockdown which was when we were planning on filming and we couldn’t film during that period as the government rules dictated that only 2 people were to meet outside and we needed all four of us to film. However, after the lockdown we were able to film what we needed to film and we were ready to edit. But there was another lockdown from the start of January which meant we were no longer able to edit our films and all we had was raw footage. As we had no editing software at home, consequently we couldn’t put the footage together how we wanted it. We also had to factor in what we would have to do instead of putting together our film opening. One of them was using the “1 second a day” app on our phones to record a shot film while in lockdown of our activities. Another idea was to try and record a short film on our phones of a film opening and edit it through our phones. 

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Finance 

Finance wasn’t an issue for our group as we did not have to pay for anything extra that we already had to. The camera and tripod was given to us by the school to use freely if we didn't damage them, which we didn’t. Transport was free also as we walked to the filming location which was beneficial as we did not have to waste time and money on transport. 

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Script for commentary (I cannot commentate due to technical difficulties)

 

Personal management

Our team meetings were very proactive and effective. All of our team members were proactive and helpful as much as they could be and working to the best of their abilities. Each team member had their roles to do and we all did them successfully to the best of their abilities. We all worked together in the project and this had a positive effect on the production. 

 

Resource management 

Talk about: 

Camera

Editing software(lack of) 

Costume

Props

 

Monitoring progress

We had our ways to monitor progress. These included diaries we kept of the meetings, and how much footage we were getting when we went out to record.

 

Crisis management

One crisis issue we had was the coronavirus pandemic. This posed many large issues in our filming and we had no control over them. We had the November lockdown which was when we were planning on filming and we couldn’t film during that period as the government rules dictated that only 2 people were to meet outside and we needed all four of us to film. However, after the lockdown we were able to film what we needed to film and we were ready to edit. But there was another lockdown from the start of January which meant we were no longer able to edit our films and all we had was raw footage.