3 CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

 CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION 3: How did your production skills develop throughout the project?

I had never done any editing or worked on my production skills before this film opening, and as I was working on my own, I felt I was challenged a lot throughout the process. As shown on my blog, I used a variety of tools to ensure that my production was properly researched, filmed and edited. I used Scoop.it! for the initial research and collect ideas to start my script. Within my preliminary exercises, I took many photos of my initial partner to get a handle on camera angles and shots, before creating a tabletop sequence, inspired by the film openings I saw on Art of the Title. This allowed me to start editing on my own using iMovie and YouCut, both of which I could access at home. 

Furthermore, in order to present my own ideas on my blog, I used Google Slides, Canva and Prezi. I found that for a beginner like me, these three tools had a great user interface and I managed to figure out the sites very quickly. This meant I was able to quickly create eye catching posts to show my ideas and how I put these into practice. 

I also had to run a blog. I had previously had a blog but I was not motivated to post. However, with the addition of pages and a new interface, I found Blogger was an effective platform for me to share my production, and I posted my presentations onto the blog.

Later on I found it necessary to look at audience reactions for my film in order to make it better. I use Google as a platform for the majority of my work so I decided to use Google forms to create my audience questionnaire. I found this simple especially as I was working alone and did not need to share it with any other production team members. For a team, I think Google Forms would be confusing unless the team shared one but I found a tool that automatically added audience responses to a spreadsheet which helped when audience profiling.

Once I had started filming, I started to use Final Cut Pro X to edit my opening. I needed assistance throughout as I didn't know how to use it and struggled with anything more than cutting clips together. However, I soon started to know how to match clips to the music and keeping time. This meant that my editing skills improved massively over the course of making my film opening.

I also developed the skills to handle any emergencies on my own. Halfway through my production, my lead actor quit, and as I hadn't finished my re-shoots, I needed to recast and re-shoot the entirety of my film. I managed to find an available actor amongst my friendship group and effectively managed to contact my other lead actor who luckily was available to come into school at the shoot times. I also managed to overcome deadline obstacles as I sometimes struggled with completing all the work on my own to meet the deadlines. I talked to my teacher and managed to prioritize certain tasks to ensure I completed the piece on time.

During my feedback phase I realised that the last scene in my opening was barely audible over the wind conditions of the clip which was not ideal. I unfortunately was not able to correct this issue before lockdown as my actors weren't available, but I have taken this knowledge into consideration for my next production.