Evaluation Question 7

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

My preliminary task

Our brief for the preliminary task was to include someone walking through a door and to include some speech. It has allowed us to practice a variety of shots and skills that helped us to create our thriller opening. For example, the opening shot of Freya walking is similar to the close up shot of Freya's feet in our opening. It also allowed us to get used to setting the scene which was relevant to our storyline. Our preliminary task was set in an isolated and deserted setting as the scene was meant to be secret and suspicious whereas, our thriller opening is set in an forest to fit in with the common conventions of a thriller film.

Developed skills

My preliminary task allowed me to experiment with different shots and skills to see which ones work and which ones don't. This was crucial as it allowed me to know what would work in our opening. One skill that I learnt was editing and having continuity a series of clips into a smooth and flowing video. I also learnt about the importance of the 180 degree rule and how to incorporate it into our opening. The preliminary task also allowed me to learn how to use the editing software which made it easier when it came to editing our thriller opening.

Problems

During the production of our thriller film we came across a few problems but we easily resolved them. The first day we filmed the camera battery ran out very quick so we couldn't get much filming done, we easily resolved this by making sure the camera had full battery for the next day we filmed. The second day of filming we realised that a few of the shots were too shaky and had to re film them. This wasn't really much of a problem as they didn't take long to film and we learnt how to hold the camera from our mistakes. During editing we wanted to use a typewriter style font for our opening credits but the school computers would not allow us to download fonts. We overcame this by having to compromise to a pre-downloaded font which actually turned out to work better than the font we did want originally.