Question 7

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

I feel I have drastically developed as a filmmaker from completing my preliminary task to my final production; my preliminary task was quite effective as we included everything that was required, but we encountered some problems like poor lighting which led to further problems such as the actors being difficult to see clearly, this damaged the way our video looked which made it look less attractive to our audience. We identified this as a problem so we set out to improve this in our final production.

The shot on the left is from our preliminary task and the shot on the right is from our final production; there’s a significant difference in the quality of lighting; we added a dark effect onto our final production and it was set outside and the light quality is still better than our prelim task, this shows that we took great care in improving the lighting as our feedback from prelim identified it as the main problem, this also highlights the great progression that we made. This adds greatly to the effectiveness of our final production as it shows that we improved on the flaws of our prelim to create an exciting thriller with much enriched lighting; however we still encountered many problems with lighting as we shot every scene outside so we were reliant on good weather conditions to ensure the lighting was proficient. The lighting could have also led to continuity issues as we shot at several locations on different days; continuity was one of the main issues we faced with our prelim so we identified this as something we had to get right with our final production, with which we did meritoriously.

A strongpoint of our prelim is that we included many different shot types which made it more interesting by making each shot different from the next; we saw this was effective so we expanded on this by including more ambitious shots whilst we also kept cutting back to the oncoming train. We did this because our feedback told us that our differentiation of shots in our prelim was one of the best features so we decided to manipulate our strongpoints to ensure we get the best final production possible.

Here’s an example of the unique shots we included; this shot is effective as the high angle shot highlights the dominance of power held by the male protagonist. This shows great progression from our prelim as we only really included basic medium and close-up shots, we never attempted anything as ambitious as this.

Another way in which we greatly improved from our prelim is with continuity, as we filmed our final production in numerous locations at different dates we had to take every precaution to ensure we maintained continuity. We encountered no problems with continuity in our final production as the weather was the same on all days we filmed and we ensured our actors maintained their continuity, however we did have some problems with continuity in our prelim.

  

This is a screen grab from our prelim highlighting a continuity issue we had when performing the match on action shot as we didn’t edit it correctly so the actors hand appeared to move jittery. We identified this as a problem so we sought to rectify it by ensuring we edited profusely throughout our final production.

 

 

As continuity issues led to many problems arising in our prelim, we used a technique of exploiting the many oncoming train shots we had to hide any minor continuity issues editing couldn’t prevent. This proceeded to be a very effective technique as it vastly improved the continuity from our prelim as well as adding to the overall tension of the production; something of which our prelim was significantly lacking in, but our prelim didn’t have to abide by a specific genre so maintaining high levels of tension wasn’t essential.

My editing skills have increased momentously from the prelim production as I have learnt how to effectively follow the 180 degree rule and abide by the golden mean, as well as this I’ve learnt how to edit effectively by ensuring continuity is maintained; I have done this by making sure the film is a smooth, slick final production.

Another way in which we significantly improved was with the way we planned in our final production, we carried out extensive research and planning to ensure our final production fitted our consumers’ needs as well as making sure we followed our plan thoroughly.

    

This is an example of the planning that we did for our final production, we extensively researched our location to establish whether it was suitable or not, on the other hand we carried out no research into the location of our preliminary task. We also carried out planning into all aspects of our final production, such as: costume, props, etc. we learnt from our prelim that little planning can have a detrimental effect on the final production so we used this as motivation to ensure that our planning was of the highest quality; we scrupulously planned every little part of our thriller so we knew who would be doing what and what was happening on each day of filming.   

 

 

We also visited the locations beforehand to give us an idea if they would be suitable for our production, the mood board above indicates how much attention to detail we paid as we scrutinised every detail adroitly. This is something we didn’t do with our prelim; we only ever saw our location when we filmed, and we realised that it wouldn’t be wholly suitable, but our poor planning ensured that we couldn’t change it; this is one of the main motivations for our detailed planning.  

Another way we improved from our preliminary task was with the way that we effectively used sound to extrapolate the effect that we wanted to create and effectively replicate this new found use of sound to build tension and suspense, whilst also keeping the audience captivated. In our prelim we just had one train overlaying everything which was ‘The Eye of The Tiger’ with a small bit of dialogue intertwined; we realised this is very basic and sought to improve this in our final production by using a more complex mix of sounds. We used a slow, chilling piece of music composed by a renown thriller music producer, we also introduced a narration of a poem halfway through called ‘Cousin Kate’, we used this poem as an inspiration for our whole production which is signified by our choice of title: ‘Kate’s Revenge’. This narration shows that we can use new aspects that are rarely used in thriller productions, this also makes ours more unique than the typical thriller, we have also drastically expanded on our minimalistic prelim ideas by introducing ideas that are more controversial than anything our prelim included.