Question 7:

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

Before we started our opening sequence which was our final project, we had to do a preliminary task in order to for us familiarise ourselves with the equipment and how it worked. This included learning how to work the cameras, such as the zoom, lowering and rising the camera stand and fixing it securely in place and finally the software like Final Cut Pro which we would regularly use and the Macs.  

Previously to going out and filming the preliminary task we had to plan what our actors were going to say, in this case it was myself and Jack, and the camera shots we were going to use. In the footage, we had to include a shot reverse shot and a mid shot, both of which we had. Our setting was at school so we decided our dialogue would also be about school which linked with the setting and made it believable. 

Below is our preliminary task and watching it again after producing our opening sequence it is clear how much we have improved as we have created a better quality and more interesting film. 

It is difficult to compare the use of camera shots from our preliminary task to our opening sequence because we didn't use the same shots, however we kept the range of shots fairly minimalistic in both. In both films we used a mid shot: 

This is taken from pour preliminary task and is a mid shot from the front of Jack. 

This is taken from our opening sequence and is a mid shot but from the back of Jack. 

In our preliminary task we didn't film any hand held as we didn't want to risk shakiness in the footage and therefore make it hard to watch. So we used the camera stand which was challenging to position on the stairs but we were successful in being able to angel it correctly, shown especially in the shot reverse shot in the "have you done the biology homework?" dialogue. In our opening sequence however we did film hand held which was very effective, there are several examples of this: 

Of course our mise en scene/ location was different to our preliminary task because we were limited to stay in school and only had the day to think about it so we weren't prepared with props or costume. We took more time to decide where the best place would be to film in order to create an eerie atmosphere. We filmed in a park and my garage both of which worked well with our storyline. We also couldn't control the lighting in our preliminary task as we filmed by windows, however in our opening sequence we were able to decide the lighting we wanted in the garage. We decided to have the main lights off and the only lighting we had was from our phone so it was light enough to film our footage but to also create a dark and tense atmosphere which fitted with the genre of our film.

Over the course, we improved our knowledge and understanding of how the software Final Cut Pro worked. In our preliminary task we only used the software to cut footage out that we didnt want using the blade tool so it was very basic and therefore the footage was uninteresting to watch. In our opening sequence however we used the blade tool the cut our footage to create jumps between the garage and then back to the park which was effective as it held the audiences attention as they had to focus on the location changes. We also had music in our final project which was emotive and created tension at certain moments in our film such as the pitch and volume rose in the song when the picture was burning. Overall, we produced a higher quality film that we were proud of.