Craig: Lessons learnt from AS project - Thriller

Last year could have gone considerably smoother, and Becky will agree, as we were eventually stuck in the same group. Initially, there was a lot of moving around as I was dragged in from another group and two members of the group I worked with decided to simply drop the subject, leaving us with only three people and four jobs to do. We eventually came to the conclusion directing duties were to be shared, and I ended up with the job of editor. Time management from our group was really good last year, and it proved pivotal to achieving what we did, as we had to do the filming process more than once (explained later). We planned everything with meetings, held within lessons and free periods, or as and when it suited us best, these went really well as we all came up with some brilliant ideas which were then translated into our product. Our personnel situation was quite a disaster last year as so many people were moved around due to people dropping the subject as it didn’t suit them. One member of the group also only did things as and when they wanted to, and this held us back quite a bit. Props were a luxury as we had a minimal budget, we basically used what we could get our hands on, and the only thing bought specifically for the project was a magazine. Costume usage was poor last time round, this year we need extensive planning and a wider use of costumes if we are going to give the effect and symbols needed for a costume drama. Likewise with costumes, locations were poor, not as bad as costumes, but we need a wider range of locations this time round and need to be more appropriate, we also have to take geographical factors into account when selecting where and when to film. The cameras we used didn’t like us last year and the older cameras we used basically gave up on us every time, we eventually used the brand new cameras and these worked first time round, the only issue we had with them was it picked up a lot of wind effects and sound. We filmed the entire thing a grand total of three times, on three very different cameras!