Q7: Looking back at my preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full project?

When we shot our preliminary task, the only planning we had was a selection of photos and a rough script, neither of which we stuck to especially rigidly. As a result what would now have taken us roughly half an hour at most to film took us the best part of an hour to shoot, so one of the biggest things that I learned from doing to the preliminary task was the value of planning and story boarding so that we knew exactly what to do when and it didn't end up taking twice the expected time. I feel that we managed this very well with shooting 'Evito'. Despite losing each other for the best part of the morning on the expanses of Welles' beach we managed to gather around quarter of an hour of footage within the space of two or three hours at most including the long times we spent moving from location to location. This was entirely thanks to the fact that we knew exactly what shot we wanted and where. I feel that we have stuck very closely to our story board and that the story board - above our impatience and naivety - was the key to being able to shoot as quickly and as efficiently as we did. We rarely felt the need to re-shoot unless it was to specifically change the action within the shot. Whereas in our preliminary task most of the shots the final edit was made out of were second or even third attempts, the majority of the clips that make up 'Evito' are first takes.
      As well as the value of time management in the shoot, we were also more disciplined when it came to editing together our final and draft cuts. When we had edited the preliminary task, the technology was new to most of us so we spent time experimenting and adding in new and exciting effects, none of which survived for long. The second time we came to edit, just like the shooting, we had a clear idea of the sounds, the shot lengths and the actual shots that we wanted to use and where, which was, again, mostly thanks to the story board.
     Though we didn't learn it during the preliminary task, when it came of filming 'Evito' we appreciated the value of filler and extra shots. This may well have happened inadvertently as when are group were trying to find one another for hours on end we, at points, came across scenery too amazing not to shoot. The opening shot, for example, of the sand racing across the beach, was shot purely by accident and it is not alone. When it came to the end of the shoot at least half of what we had shot, if not more, were few second snippets of forest, beach and the sea. Choosing which ones to use and which ones to discard turned out to be one of the hardest parts of the whole project. We shot the film in two separate sessions: first on the beach and then at a location in the school a few days afterwards, by which time we had realized the benefit of shooting more than we needed. The second shoot was quite unique in that as there would be no dialogue and no 'natural' sound either, we were free to advise and direct our actors while the camera was rolling. we ended up with two ten minute chunks of film both of which contained countless amounts of varying action shot from different lengths and heights. From memory only roughly five different actions within the fives-courts out of the however many were actually used.
     It was not a conscious decision on anyone's part but it could be said that because we'd had such a difficult time with the dialogue in the preliminary task, this is what led us to avoid it all together in 'Evito'. What we did include in 'Evito' which we hadn't before was sound effects. Personally I wanted to avoid overusing artificial effects and improvements as I was worried that it would take too long and would, more importantly, detract from the rough, authentic look of the film (I take credit for the  lack of anything more interesting than a fade out where the titles are concerned). However sound effects were an exception as what we needed - namely static - was not going to intrude on the more natural areas of the film and as a result I am now able to add sound effects to a film.
     As a group we were all fairly committed to the ideas we had come up with and as a result we found it difficult to change some of the areas we were advised to in feedback, both from the teacher and other students. Perhaps then this was the most difficult aspect of productions as, although the feedback we got was mostly very good, the few areas flagged up as in need of refining or changing we were, especially where the storyline itself was concerned, reluctant to change and fairly minimal in our approach. However when placed next to our preliminary task I can clearly see that 'Evito' is by far the superior of the two and the time management skills learned from the preliminary task were invaluable in achieving this.