Film Opening - 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

My preliminary exercise was one of the first pieces of film i had ever produced, and as such, a lot of mistakes were made. I used these mistakes as a stepping stone to make sure i didn't fall into the same traps as before. One of our biggest problems in the preliminary exercise was the lack of structure to our storyboard: Everybody seemed to have a different idea of what we were doing. This time, my group and i worked as a team to make sure that everything that needed to be done got done, and that we wee all on the same page in terms of where we thought the film was going.
Our storyboarding and idea brainstorming was definitely an improvement, which paid off in both the production and post production process. With my preliminary task, this lack of an extensive pre production process had caused problems when trying to film and edit.
Another key point was the distribution of roles amongst our group. This time round we each focuses on a certain aspect, whilst maintaining support and providing ideas to the people in different roles. This made sure that everyone was kept busy with a job to do, and eliminated people arguing over how a role should be performed. 
      As an example:

• Preliminary exercise: The role of camera operator was shared between a few different people, with the person doing the actual filming changing each time.

• Opening scene: We had one person in the role of camera operator, meaning he maintained the feel of the film and kept it looking natural. This is not to say that the other members did not get a say in how the camera was operated, as ideas were discussed between us.

We also managed to include a wider variety of shot types, and more overall footage. This meant the film could be kept interesting by means of the post production editing. Other editing techniques such as music, a voice over and sound effect were also present. Editing is perhaps our most progressed skill since the preliminary exercise.
More advanced title sequences also played a role. Before the names of those involved were put in at the end as more of an afterthought than part of the film. Our opening scene allowed us to play with and develop the idea of more immersive titles, that can be used as a part of the film not just a formality
To conclude, i would say that every aspect of my media knowledge and experience has increased, as well as my confidence in using different, more imaginative techniques, editing and shot types.

Film opening - Mise-en-scène

As we're making the opening for a historical film set approximately 80 years ago, Mise-en-scène is incredibly important for making our opening look believable, interesting and showing good continuation.
We wrote a list of items we could potentially need and went about trying to collect them. This ensured that when it came to filming we had a convincing set with excellent Mise-en-scène.

• Any bullets, bullet casings or shells.
• Any military style uniform, such as boots, military jackets and hats.
• Indicators of the location, era and situation the characters are in (war time) 
•  Documents and papers, some with black boxes over parts of the text.
• Ashtray
• A smoking fire/camp fire, or a campfire effect.
• Any replica weapons

Combined with our plans of making the titles and music represent the location and era, this will make our film opening look authentic.