CCR essay - production and skills development

Prezi - On skills development: Diving into progression. 

How did your production skills develop throughout this project? 

Beginning a journey towards creating a film opening is simple; building the skills necessary to make a successful break into such a project, however, takes much more time and commitment. Such a task requires various skillsets that I had to gain an understanding in and incorporate into my film opening. 

The process of research, planning and production required long and repetitive engagement throughout this project. Therefore, I have patently noticed significant improvements in my production skills over the course of creating my film opening. 

From a young age, being born into a world full of diverse films, I have always had an open and critical mind when it came to the process of creating such a complex feature length narrative. However, being given the task of creating only the opening of a film has given me a chance to slowly and carefully appreciate the practical aspects of what it takes to make one. 

When it came to planning and research, I fully let myself indulge in the process of finding more about the genre I want to take on and what it will require from me. I went through a period of trial and error where I let myself create several storyboards for two completely different ideas of the project. This allowed me to find the perfect final idea which I was content and excited with. Consequently, by creating a logline and treatment for my project, as well as planning all the characters and their main features, it was much easier to immerse myself into my film opening and picture it better. 

Therefore, by consistently uploading the details onto my blog that I would need to consider while filming the film opening to ‘EMMA’, the production of the project itself was much more efficient. 

Additionally, preliminary exercises were the aspects of this project that also heavily impacted the progression I faced throughout the past few months. By being given a task of creating a one-minute short film and uploading it on my blog, I was able to recognise what I can do well and where I lack any specific skills. Moreover, it gave me an idea of how film production works and all the steps required to create a short video, such as filming, editing and adding all kinds of details - like text and music. 

And while fostering all these aspects did help me play a vital role in this projects’ production, I believe that my production skills developed the most throughout the film-making stage. Not only did it introduce me to guerrilla filmmaking, but it also allowed me to apply my own creative freedom, rather than completely relying on my storyboard. Furthermore, it helped me understand that not everything will go as planned and having to re-film some scenes will always be inevitable. But most importantly, it made the long hours of planning, specifically of the mise-en-scène, come to life. 

Moreover, throughout post-production there have been many significant skills that I acquired. From having to find the perfect editing software to applying elements of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, as well as transitions, I developed a deeper understanding of how difficult editing can be. 

Overall, with the help of ‘iMovie’ - an editing software that was the most suitable for my editing style - I was able to colour correct the scenes to match each other in lighting and colour scheme by using the 'match colour' option. Although this was difficult at first, I mastered it quickly and achieved the cinematic look I was hoping for. I was also able to trim most of the footage that I did not need and add several ‘fade to black’ transitions. On top of that, both copy-right free foley and music to specific scenes. All of this required a lot of patience through trial and error in order to create seamless transitions and match the added sound onto the chosen scenes - specifically to keep the audience engaged. 

To conclude, to foster each of these skills, I needed and still need up-close and personal experience working at creating such projects. However, the desire to produce an engaging and entertaining final foundation portfolio did help me gain the experience I required to thrive throughout the production process.