Question 7: Comparison of Tasks

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task I have learnt a lot since then, and coming up to this task. Our preliminary task was mostly about concentrating on how to get the right shots, and getting used to the normal equipment; it was also about getting to know how we'd work with each other as we'd never done so before. It also gave us a chance to learn about how to edit our films using iMovie, which became useful for our most recent task. The different shots we learnt to use were; match on action, 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot, having to edit our films taught us how to show the continuity in our film, and make our audience drawn into it.
With this particular task we took a lot more time in planning the opening of our film, we concentrated on what would be the right the genre, and once we had chosen we done a lot of research into it and came across that our genre 'ROMCOM' was highly popular. Once that was dealt with we began planning on what our film would be based on and came up with initial ideas, when we were comfortable with our initial ideas we then came up with a brief summary. Afterwards we then created storyboards and shotlist was created by one of our cameramen, the script was also written for our film. For this task we made sure that everything was organised and everyone in our group new what their role was, we also made sure that we had the right equipment for each shot and we came well prepared whereas in our previous pleminary task we'd sometimes forget certain pieces of equipment. During this task I also learnt how to use a software called 'Celtx' which is what we used to create our script, and production schedule.
In the preliminary task we learnt a lot on time management we had a sheet which helped us schedule our timing, and the different times that we'll be filming; we also worked out how long it'll take us to set up and pack away the equipment, also how long it would take to film each shot. Learning about keeping time management became useful for us in our AS task since we planned what we needed to shoot, when and where and also how long it may take us which seemed more professional compared to our previous task. This made our film seen more professional since we planned enough time to spend on our film, and we took the effort into editing it.
Also the planning for our film was a lot different to the planning we done for our recent task. We weren't given enough time do plan and research on initial ideas, we did draw up storyboards and floorplans to give us an idea of how our equipment would be laid out, and how our storyline would flow. On the other hand with our AS film we went into more depth with both planning and research, which became an advantage to our film. 
 Learning from our previous mistakes gave us a major advantage for our film opening, since we had a clear idea on what to do and what not to do.