Evaluation 7) - Looking back at the preliminary task, what do I feel I have learnt in he progression from it to the product?

After completing all of our filming and a large majority of our editing, we have looked back at our preliminary task, we are able to see more clearly a number of things that we should have done differently, and could have done better. We believe that the quality of filming in our thriller opening is so much better, and everything seems more professional-looking. 


Firstly, in the preliminary test, we filmed on two different days, and i wasn't wearing the same clothes, which makes it seem very unrealistic. In comparison to this, when we filmed on several different days for he thriller opening, we made sure outfits/costumes stayed consistent, to make it seem to all take place on the same day.

Also, when watching the Preliminary task back, we realized that the quality of shots, transitions and actual filming were all very low. The camera jolted a lot and was far from smooth. In the actual film the quality is much better, and we have learned how to use dissolves, fade ins and fade outs, and Tom has improved in his filming and camera technique immensely. The variety of the shots in our actual thriller opening are  original and interesting in comparison to our preliminary task.


Sound
The comparison of sound in the preliminary task, to that in the actual thriller opening is extremely obvious. The sound in the preliminary task is only the conversation between myself and Dan. There is no music, only dialogue. Since this, we have discovered the importance of music and sound effects, and have used them, as well as dialogue in our final coursework. We used two varying pieces of music, as well as various sound effects to enhance our opening.


Shots
In comparison to our preliminary task, in our actual opening we have been able to use more interesting shot transitions, which we found was helpful in creating tension. We used crosses and dissolves, where the shot fades out and the next fades in. The video below shows a small clip at which point we have used fade in fade out shots.

Another difference between the two films is that in "Hide and Seek", we used credits, whereas in our preliminary, we didn't. Tom made all the credits and we feel the were really original, suited the mood we wanted to create, and were good especially when the fact that we only had a couple of months to figure out how to use the program. 

We also feel that in the preliminary task we made a lot more mistakes, and had to repeat things over and over. Dan seemed to find it particularly hard;

We feel that we have learnt a lot about character and object positioning and within the frame, as well as settings and angles. We found that our original ideas changed so much from our finished product but we have tried to be as inventive as we can, hopefully improving on what we wanted to do to begin with. A lot of work went into what we have done and we are very proud of our thriller opening.