'Meaning is limited by the tools we have available'

1st October was the day we held our very first production day! We spent the whole day thinking about our short clips that we were going to make in our groups and were able to start thinking about the creative process that had to take place in order to create our film. It was the first time we had done anything like this and overall I think the day was a great success!

During this day we had to learn a ton of new technical jargon and skills in order to create a film that we could be proud of and that fulfilled its purpose. We learnt how to adjust the focus on a camera; whether we wanted soft or sharp focus and how these slight adjustments can change the meaning of a scene altogether, the meaning of a set up and how it could be useful when creating a movie and the idea of having a foreground which is simply what the director wants us to focus on. We did a simple activity during the production day in order to get used to using these words whilst making our films where we had 2 wine bottles and we had to use them to portray a certain emotion or atmosphere within the set up. We had to therefor look at the focus of the two objects and by zooming in on one of the wine bottles to put it in the foreground of the set up it helped to bring attention to certain items within the set up. We found that this would be very helpful when it came to creating our own films as we would be able to focus on certain things, the main girl and boy for example, and this would then help to tell the story we were trying to tell. We also looked at the idea of continuity or 'match on action' and about how important this would be when creating our short clip. We looked at the kind of words directors had to use when filming a scene and having to follow the instructions they gave. I had never really thought about all the work that has to go on behind the scenes before having this day and I think it has really helped me to understand what it is like to be part of a 'real life' production team. 

Obviously during the day there were many ups and downs; some stuff being easier than others and some mistakes were made but I think that they were all good experiences that helped us to increase our knowledge further. At the beginning of the day we got given a genre, we had rom-com, and we already started to think of an idea. As a group we had this idea that we started storyboarding during the day however, just after break, we got given a script that we had to follow! This was extremely difficult for us as we already had an idea that we wanted to stick to but we understood that when you are part of a real life production team you have a script you had to follow. This was one of the main hurdles we had to cross during the day, another being the fact that as we are all girls and this had to be a rom com including both sexes. However we did have many successes including learning how to use the cameras available to us and thinking about the many different shots we could use in order to portray the different emotions we had in our scene.

Overall I think it was a fantastic day that really helped us to get a good understanding of the whole production process that happens when a making a real life movie!