Evaluation Question 7

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

During my preliminary task, I was confident using the equipment to film as I was familiar with the equipment we were using. So when it came to filming our thriller opening, I was able to use the skills that I had developed when doing the preliminary task making it easier to use whilst filming our thriller opening.

Pre-production is the process in which you prepare all the elements needed in a film, play or performance. For our thriller opening we had storyboarded our initial idea with comments such as if props were required in the shot and where the shot will be taken place and what show will be used. This was beneficial for our thriller opening as it set out a guideline which we intended to follow and if any changes were to be made, they would be done during the production of our thriller opening. In addition, we had ensured that the locations we were going to use were available for the dates that we had scheduled to film and that all props were bought so that filming would go smoothly.

In production, the film is created and shot. During the production of our film, we had decided to try and keep to the storyboard as much as possible. This was because it would be less complicated as it was our initial idea and making changes would affect the whole opening.  Whilst the production of our film, as a group I had found it comfortable to film as we had worked together to use the camera. Also, sharing the role meant that we all had input into the production of the thriller. We were all able to put forward the skills we had learnt and developed from our preliminary task.

Finally, post production is where the film is assembled to have continuity so that it is presentable to audiences. In post production for our thriller, we had used FinalCut Pro to edit our clips together. On this software, we had also used it to add transitions such as fade out/fade in and add titles to our opening to follow the conventions of thriller openings. After editing our clips together, we had imported it into Soundtrack Pro so that we could add a soundtrack/music to our opening. We had searched for sounds on this software which would be appropriate and suitable to use for our opening. Furthermore, we had used foley sounds to emphasise the use of some of the props in our thriller opening. For example, we had used the diegetic sound of the book closing to emphasise the fact that our protagonist was fed up with chanting and had given up on trying.

Overall, throughout both the productions of the preliminary task and our final film  I have been able to expand my knowledge on using the equipment. Also, it has assisted me in becoming more familiar with the software that we had used in post production. One of the difficulties that I had come across was matching shots together so that it would make sense to the audience and have continuity effect. However, we were able to overcome this problem by re-filming some shots so that we could then use them in our opening. In addition, I am pleased with our final product as it has come out the way we had wished for it to be.