Evaluation Question 7

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

When filming the preliminary film my editing, filming and knowledge of software was much weaker than it is right now. I had very little experience with any of these aspects of media and found it difficult to start with. However, after guidance from our teachers I found that these skills were rather easy to gather.

Camera Work- During the beginning of the course I only had a general idea of the very basic shot types, this made the work look sloppy, unorganised and very basic. Now I have broad knowledge on different shot types and the effect and influence they have over both the audience and the film itself. I've learnt that the camera-work is one of the main aspects when portraying the status or representation of a particular character. I now understand that different angles and recording methods also have great influence on the clip.

Storyboard

For our preliminary task we used quark to set guidelines for our storyboard. This helped us set a basic criteria and add captions too.

The storyboard was an important part of the process and gave us a general idea of the type of shots we wanted to use for the actual movie opening.

Mise en scene

In our preliminary task we used very basic props with the 'anything will do' mind set. We thought it would have the same effect as props specific to the topic, but we was wrong. For our final product we invested in fake blood, new clothes and various other tools that we thought would make the opening seem more professional and also interesting. 

Lighting- To start with, we had trouble timing our filming. As we started filming it was still day-time in London, though this changed rapidly. As we were filming in winter it got dark very quickly and affected the lighting. this resulted in half the clip being during day-time and the other half during at night. Eventually we thought our timing through and made sure we adapted well to the weather and lighting changes.

Editing- For our preliminary task we had absolutely no knowledge on how to use software such as Soundtrack Pro so we used sounds from youtube, this made the clip lose originality and made it seem very ordinary. For our final product we were able to use sounds from Soundtrack Pro's library. We added a lullaby which made the opening seem very unorthodox and unique, in my opinion this made the opening seem more original.
We also were able to add special effects and transitions for our final product. This made the clip look more professional and helps maintain the interest of the audience but also creates suspense. We wern't able to do this for our preliminary task as we had very little knowledge on how to use the software provided.

To conclude, over the learning period we have broadened our knowledge on the software provided to us and also the equipment we were given. We are now much more familiar with the cameras and editing methods so we are able to make our work presentable and more professional.