Evaluation Question 7

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

We were given the task of creating a preliminary piece to show basic understanding of film. Within this sequence we were asked to include a few things; a continuity series, the 180 degree rule and a sequence of shot reverse shot. 

Looking back at our preliminary we could see the key areas of weakness that we knew we would get marked down for. 
One of the biggest weaknesses was continuity. When filming for our preliminary we had to re-film parts of it on different days, this caused problems with the continuity of the film as objects that were present in the background disappeared or re-appeared and things like the actors hairstyle would have changed or slight differences with clothing. To prevent this from happening when filming for our opening we would over film all clips extending the beginning and end so there is extra footage to work with when editing and to film the same clips but at more than one different angle. 



The preparation for the preliminary was very different and allot more simple than the preparation we had to go through for out film opening.
When it came to the opening task there were so many more things in which we had to consider. We had to plan the actors costume, make up, consider the target audience, the usage of props around the room and special effects.
We learnt to plan this all in our story board to make it clear exactly what had to be present in the shot, however as we filmed we were continuously making changes and minor improvements to the story line, adjusting small details that we would improve or had forgotten to include.

We learnt the importance of lighting when filming. When we filmed our preliminary all of it was filmed during the day and inside a building with lighting so no thought had to go into it. The majority of our opening was filmed outside and because our genre was horror we did not want it to be bright sunlight, we didn't consider the darkness of the light outside and ended up re-filming as it was ether too dark or clips couldn't be used together as the light present was different. We filmed on a windy day and had to make sure when editing cuts that the plants were not blowing so they could be linked. The main story line stayed the same but the details were changed drastically. 

iMovie was a great role in creating our opening. We had already used this program to create our preliminary. This allowed us to be familiar with the program and use it to its full advantages and effects to create exactly what we wanted and had planned to do so with the collected footage.

One of the major improvements since the preliminary was our continuity through out the film. Looking back at our prelim there were some huge continuity errors. For example ...

 

These two images were cut linking one shot to another. The continuity in them is very bad and obvious. The first cut finishes with the door being reached for but NOT actually opened...
In the next cut it has jumped forward and the door has  is already wide open for the girl to walk out.

When editing the final piece we knew just how accurate we had to be with the continuity and how the timing of the cut is so important! We looked extremely closely at this when editing our sequence as we knew that is was one of our major flaws beforehand.
Comparing these two door clips you can see the obvious improvement that we undertook.