Jess' Evaluation - Question 7

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

We have progressed a lot since the preliminary task, and this shows in our main task. We have developed a lot with our use of technical skills:

• We didn't set the white balance in our preliminary task however in our main thriller task we did which made a huge impact to the quality of the sequence. As you can see from the screen grabs, the second one taken from the main task is a lot clearer and therefore more advanced. The white balance is highly important because it enhances the colors, making it look more appealing to the audience. Without the white balance, the quality of the sequence is poor and has a blue/yellow tint instead of it being white. Also, it could potentially ruin a picture as it adds unwanted colour casts and causes skin tones to look very unnatural. 

• We incorporated titling into our main task which is a progression from the preliminary task because it's highly important in the film industry to use titles as it displays the production company. The appearance of our titling is suitable for a thriller as it appears on a black screen, and black is an ideal color and iconography to appear in thrillers. However, the black screen cuts to a background imagine of a POV shot from inside a car, watching everything go past from the car window.

• In terms of sound, there has been a massive progression from the preliminary task to the main task. In the preliminary, we relied on background sound without any form of non-diegetic sound; only dialogue which was recorded at the time of filming. This worked poorly as there was a constant noise in the background which took attention away from the filming. In the main task, we used a soundtrack fitting to the thriller sequence, and it worked really well as it starts with a slow pace and sounds fairly peaceful yet suspenseful. The dialogue is a lot clearer and effective in the main task than the preliminary as it was recorded separating to the filming and added in post-production, therefore there is no background sound like with the preliminary task. We also experienced with foley sounds in the main task such as the diegetic sound of the phones ringtone, and the gun shot. This increases the sound to add effect; which we didn't use in the preliminary task. This shows that our knowledge and confidence in experiencing with different elements such as editing and sound has increased since the preliminary task. 

• Our preliminary task lacked a lot of editing techniques. We did no editing in post-production, only the use of cuts when putting the shots together. Although we incorporated continuity editing in the preliminary task, they were very basic. However, now our skills have advanced and the use of shot reverse shot, match on action and other continuity techniques used in our main task flow a lot better as a sequence. We also experimented with other editing techniques such as a sound bridge. We incorporated this into our thriller sequence when the antagonist receives a phone call, in order to create enigma.

• Also, in our preliminary task the camera work was very basic and in many scenes, the camera isn't steady as they were hand-held shots. This massively reduces the quality of the sequence as when you're watching, the camera shakes, resulting in the spectator losing concentration. However, in our main task the camera is very still therefore the shots flow together very well and give an effective performance. In the main task there is a lot more variety of shot sizes and angles to create a more successful and interesting thriller whereas in the preliminary task there were only a couple of CU's, a ELS and every other shot was mostly MS. Aswell as shot sizes, we expanded our use of camera movements such a panning shots (as shown with the car in the screen grabs) and camera angles (as shown in the screen grabs - high angle, eye level). 

• When planning for the preliminary task, we were highly unprepared in terms of costume, location and lighting. When filming the preliminary, we were unorganized therefore we wore our normal, everyday clothes and didn't think about how other costumes would help construct the story line, or conventions of a thriller. However, in our main task we thought more deeply about the characters role and purpose in the sequence, therefore we chose appropriate clothes which we thought would suit an antagonist/protagonist. For example, a long beige coat and a smart hat says a lot more about a character than jeans and a jumper. It allows you to make assumptions about the characters occupation, social class, ect.

• In terms of location, we were very restricted as to where we could film on the preliminary task as it had to be on college grounds, therefore the main task was immediately better in the sense that we could venture out and choose a location to film our thriller sequence in as long as we had permission for the premises. This enabled us to be creative and experiment with locations, and in the end we chose a stereotypical location, a popular setting for many thrillers - a forest. This setting worked extremely well as it is very open and free therefore the scene with the car driving along the hill worked extremely well. The scene where the antagonist is running also worked well in this particular location as it has many trees to hide behind and run to. This creates enigma and suspense for the spectator as they're unaware who the antagonist is running from, especially with the non-diegetic music accompanying it. When filming our preliminary task were very unprepared as we weren't able to use our original location due to a class being taught in there, therefore we overcame this by choosing a different room to film in which would have a different effect than the original room, as that was more dark with various lighting.

• With the lighting, in the preliminary task we relied on the light from the ceiling in the small room that we filmed in, adding no additional light for effect and to increase the quality of the film. However, for our main task we experienced with lighting a lot more and increased our knowledge and techniques on how to use lighting. This improved our main task a lot as we were able to achieve different lighting to match different scenes, whereas in our preliminary task we used the same amount of lighting through-out. This is shown in the first scene which is the introduction of the protagonist, where natural dark lighting is used with staged lighting to help the outline of his face to show. For a majority of the main task, we used natural lighting as it is filmed outside, and we discussed which time of the day would be the most efficient to film in regards to lighting. 

• We also incorporated the continuity editing technique parallel cutting in Omniscient, whereas in our preliminary task all scenes were shot in one place, in one situation. This shows that events are happening simultaneously and creates engima and suspense.