Reflection on practice task and video

In lone of our media lessons, we was given a task to create an extract from a scene in the film Breakfast Club. This was brought on to us, which did not give us a lot of time to prepare for and also we are just getting use to being in a group together. So this task allowed us to work on our team work skills and also each one of our strengths and weaknesses. Below is the short film we produced.

What I learnt?

In the process of creating this short extract from breakfast club with my group are:

• We need more work on learning the equipment in how to use it, such as when the camera is set on completely different settings, how to get it back to normal. 
• If we were to use the sound boom the person holding it will need upper body strength as the sound boom should not be seen within the camera shot, also the person holding it must be silent at all times as the slightest sound from them can be heard clearly or even loudly through the sound boom. 
• We need more practice on Final cut pro as we had difficulty finding out where items were on the programme, so to make it easy for ourselves the practice allowed us to mess around with the programme finding out where different items were.

Strength:

• The character got into role well as the breakfast club is an American film, so they put on American accents to make the scene more convincing.
• When we set up the equipment we worked well together with two people working on the sound boom and two people working on the camera, this allowed us to get it ready quicker to shoot the scene.
• The editing transitions occasionally were good as we used jump cuts and match cuts 
• We picked relevant footage to edit as there were good and bad shoots, as not every shot was perfect, due to forgetful lines and even mise en scene props getting in the way. (In one scene which we did not use the bag hit the chair, which made the actors lose concentration.) 
• We worked good as a team as a whole, in that we were able to set out roles to each other for good pointers in what to do or what to do differently next time. Also there was difficulty with the first person holding the sound boom, as they had difficulty holding it up out of the shot. So instead of complaining which some teams may do, we resolved it by swapping the person doing the camera with the person which was doing the sound boom. 
• The actors were able to pick up their lines quickly, which allowed us to progress quickly through the scenes as we was short for time.
• As a group we picked a good location to set the scene in a classroom, which is what the film is originally set around as the students were in a classroom together in detention. 
• The mise en scene in which we used was good because it allowed the actors to look like normal teenage students in a classroom. The mise en scene being casual everyday clothing, a bag in which students need to carry around their work in, chairs and tables which every single classroom needs for the students to sit on.
• The lighting set on the camera was at a good stage as it contrasted well with the lighting from the room giving us a natural lighting camera scene.

Weaknesses:

• We had a struggle with the first person holding the sound boom as they were to short to hold the sound boom above the actors heads and out of the scene. From this we now know to set clear roles for who is doing what so there will be no complications.
• Occasionally the acting was not taken seriously as there were times were the actors could not stop laughing which in turn affected the people behind scenes as it put them off and made them laugh as well.
• The editing was not the best it could have been as we were just getting use to the programme on where items were and what it looked like if added to the scene. Also we did not have enough footage to chose from as we were unable to be adventures on looking at the different camera angles.
• At times there was disagreement on set as in if the equipment was actually recording and also one of the actors decided to wear a hoodie in a scene and not in the others.
• There was a problem with a lack of knowledge with the equipment as we were getting to new terms with it as we learnt how to use it last year, but unable to refresh ourselves with the equipment before the scene. 
• We had a problem with the number of actors as we lacked a person, because the role was set out for three people but we only had two people resulting into one of our actors having too play two roles.
• We were unable to plan what we wanted to do as the short scene extract from breakfast club was sprung on us last minute to complete the task.