7 WHAT I HAVE LEARNED ABOUT FILM MAKING

Looking back at the beginning of my project, I have learned a lot about new technologies, distribution practices and film production, etc.
In my preliminary exercise, I have tried working on shot reverse shot, different camera angles and types of camera shots to show continuity and conversations between the characters. It was hard for me as it was my first time to tried shooting a real video, but with experimenting and testing, I overcame it and have successfully produced the preliminary task.
I also learned how to make the best use of a tripod and how to balance it. Looking back now I think it was very useful as it really helped me get prepared for filming the opening sequence and if it was't for the preliminary task, the filming and editing of our media project wouldn't have gone as well as it had.
Another thing I learned through the preliminary task was the choice of camera. In the preliminary task, we chose to use an iPhone because it was easy and convenient. However, the quality was not good, so me and my group decided we would use a better camera for the opening sequence and we ended up using Cannon 550D, which the quality was so much better.
In our preliminary task, I chose to use Adobe premier for editing. Although I wasn't that familiar with it in the beginning, but after the preliminary task I have learned a lot about it and it had made editing our opening so much easier as all of us were quite familiar with it already.
By using Adobe premier allowed us to edit all our footages in many different ways, in order to create suspense and realism, for example by colour correction and cutting out bits that we don't need to increase the pace.

Overall, after finishing the project, I have realised that there were some important elements in order to make a film/ a film opening interesting to raise interest from my target audiences. One of them is the story board because no matter how good your editing skills are, without an interesting story, you still wouldn't be able to engage your target audiences. Another impprtant aspect is the use of camera angles and shots because the opening title is usually a few minutes long only, so you would have to use a wide range of suitable camera shots in order to show as much background information as you can with the shortest amount of time. For example made use of cutaway in order to create excitement and enigma. There are also other important factors that I have learned throughout the project, for example like editing, sound and mise-en-scene, etc. They would all help convey the mood and atmosphere of the film to audiences and also shows the genre of the film. I think in order to create a good, successful film opening, the most important thing was that all of the factors that I have mentioned above must be well balanced. You cant spend all your time focusing on getting a nice story but not putting any effort in choosing the right music and dialogue.
I have learned a lot throughout the process and I believe these skills and techniques would be very useful in the rest of the course and even for my future career.