Preliminary Task

For my preliminary task, I had to film and edit an opening to a film which represented British youth culture. To do this, I worked with three other girls in my media class - Mikaila, Hannah and Amelia. Myself and Hannah used two cameras to record and Mikaila and Amelia starred in the film opening, but we all separately edited our film opening using Final Cut Express so that each one was different and we all had the chance to learn. 

For me, it was my first time recording or editing a video but I found it easier than expected and I actually quite enjoyed the whole process, thus meaning I'm quite excited to get started on my main project. I spent an hour recording and around 4-6 hours editing, and after doing as much as I could with the footage I shot I have decided to allocate myself with a Level 2/3 grade. This is because I believe I showed a basic, bordering on proficient, level of skill when recording and editing my footage to say that it was my first time I'd ever tried. I believe that I edited the footage so that the meaning of it was apparent to the viewer and that I made effective use of transitions, text and sound.

To improve my film opening I would spend more time recording, and plan it out more beforehand so that we all know exactly what we're doing and exactly what shots we need. In the end, we only ended up with 23 different shots, with some only being a few seconds long so next time I would make sure I had more footage than what I actually needed, just to be sure I had everything I could possibly need to create the finished product.

Through this process, personally I have learnt to not be scared of new, different things as initially I was quite uneasy about recording and editing as it was a completely new thing for me as my comfort zone was with print. However now I feel much more confident and am quite excited to get started on my music video as, by doing this preliminary task, I have learnt the basics of Final Cut Express and will therefore know how to start with my music video.