Task 7- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

I feel that over the course of the production I feel that from my preliminary task to my finished thriller opening sequence I have progress a lot.

The main task was much more in depth and complicated to do that the preliminary as in the preliminary we didn’t have to do too much planning, with our sequence already being primarily storyboarded for us, also it was not as important so we didn’t have to use as sophisticated and impressive shots or editing. Prelim we planned and filmed in one lesson and edited in a lesson, where as for our main task we had weeks of planning and re-developing our ideas, then after we had established it we then had to plan props, location and actors, our filming took an entire day and then editing took weeks to complete. The difference between our preliminary and finished task is very noticeable and I am very happy with how our finished thriller turned out.

2. I feel that my film making skills have improved from our preliminary task to our finished product, in our preliminary task the shots were basic and storyboarded for us with the option to add in extra shots if we desired. In the main task of our thriller we had to storyboard and come up with all the shots used and why we would use them, planning the whole thing, this was much more difficult as we had to plan and think about what shots to use and which shots would be effective. My understanding of different shots has also increased since the preliminary task and rather than just picking shots that we thought would look good for our final thriller, we debated as to what shot would portray our idea best for each one. I didn’t mind storyboarding as we worked as a group and got our idea and shots worked out so that it was quite easy, although as our idea got changed on shoot day slightly we couldn’t use our storyboard for our previous idea so we had to make a quick one for the new idea and plan some of the shots while we were shooting. Our editing has also improved vastly since the preliminary task in which the editing was not very flowing or correct, however I feel the final opening of the thriller is fluid and runs smoothly.

3. There is a definite improvement from our preliminary to our main task in the use of camera, we all in the group were more comfortable with the camera, how to function it and how to frame our shots deciding on what will be most effective. We took some of the original shots from our preliminary task but developed them and incorporated new shots which hopefully looked effective and fitting for a thriller. We used eye-line matches from our assassin to the targets; we broke the 180 degree rule with three consecutive shots and used various other shots in it which we did not use in our preliminary such as a tracking shot on tracks. I feel that the camera work improved considerably from the preliminary to the actual thriller.

4. The change in sound from our preliminary to our main task is very noticeable and improved; in our preliminary task the dialogue is quite quiet and does not include music or any other sounds. In the main thriller task we used ambient non-diagetic wind sound that we put in, we used dramatic music to add tension and create a tense atmosphere, put in gunshots and bangs, and also recorded dialogue which we put over the top of our video. The sound for the main task was quite hard to put in place and organise, and to fins the right sounds for our thriller but eventually we got it all together and placed them in appropriate places in the video. I feel that the sound progressed from our preliminary task to our main thriller vastly and that we have learnt a lot.