Dom Michau: What I have learnt from my foundation portfolio.

• Ensure that you know your group well enough to decided if they are the right people to work with and motivate all members of the group to pull their weight for the good of the group. Last year unfortunately we had a group member that was never around for any film editing or any of the lessons and eventually towards the end of the project was kicked out of college. Also there were complications in the group as some of the group did not get on. Friction in the group creates problems later on as although we were able to work through the differences it puts a strain on the group and de-motivates group members to work as hard. This resulted in a final piece being sloppy and not as good as it potentially could have been due to group member not wanting to spend time with each other.

• Filming in a external can also be tricky due to external variables and factors that can't be controlled. The filming for the foundation portfolio was done outside at Balcombe station (As shown on the right.) However Balcombe didn't look like this on the first day of our filming. The weather was constantly changing between snow, rain, dark clouds and sun 10 minutes into the filming. This of course caused a real problem in the continuity of the product. We went back a second time to film our thriller opening and when we were editing it was apparent that there was no way we could use any of the shots from day 1 regardless of if they were good or not due to continuity. The weather and even slight change in sky colour become very obvious when film outside and I will try to avoid it in my new piece of work, If external shots are essential I will try to ensure a whole day is dedicated to filming all the relevant external shots.

• Exposure and contrast was also something that was a problem with the filming. The camera we used was shooting all shots in extremely high exposure and it made the frames indistinguishable. I have learnt to make sure that the camera is working properly and am going to try to learn more about the camera so if a problem like this arises again I can sort it out easily and save the group wasting time with poor quality footage. (Below is an example of a over exposed camera shot.)

• Overall i have learnt that more timing and planning needs to go into the intial storyboard, group organisation, times and dates for filming and also group time editing. If all the group are happy working together and organise set times for things to be done. This keeps people happier than people having to complain about other group members not doing enough work which brings group moral down.

Dominic Michau