Question 7- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Question 7- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

What was the purpose of the preliminary task?

The purpose of the preliminary task was to test run the use of both the camera and the tripod as no one in our group had used them before. For the filming Miss Georgiou put in place a few details our clip had to feature so we had at least a narrative to play around with. It involved filming and editing a character walking and opening a door, crossing the room to join another character, before having a few lines of dialect and exiting the room. The clip was to be small and be no longer than a minute long but was to set in place to give a better understanding of our main task to come and allow us a chance to get more familiar with the filming equipment and camera whether being in front of behind it. It also gave us a chance to use an editing programme to give us a greater knowledge on how it works and the steps that go into making the clip. By doing this it should benefit our final clip and main task as we were able to have a test run on the whole process we are about to begin.

What did you learn from the preliminary task?

When looking back I realised that the first clip was not the quality that we hoped it would be mainly due to other affecting areas that we failed to take into consideration. For example, background noise, as the door in the room we used was very creaky and slow to shut meaning the sound dragged on through some of the dialogue of the clip. I also learned how to put into practice a lot of the shots we had just learnt about and where each one would be effective. As well as this we also very importantly got to use and familiarise ourselves with the editing programme as after filming the clip it was time for us to edit the shots, again something we had never done before, to try and merge them as seamlessly together as possible. To do so we soon realised a lot of the shots needed to be cut accordingly to stop our whole clip becoming one big jump shot. Carrying out this step we realised how hard this step was as we were unfamiliar with the editing software however nearing the end of the task we could all spot where clips needed to be edited or cut further and had a greater understanding of how to make the final product as good as possible as editing, as we found when filming out clip, can make or break a scene.

What skills did you learn from the preliminary task that helped you with your thriller film?

I learnt the basics of creating and forming a narrative as although there was guidelines set in place of what actions someone had to carry out these were the only guidelines put in place so the location, cinematography and dialogue content was down to us. However to make our clip as best and professionally we could we all agreed to include as many as we could, however only where appropriate to the shot.

I also, through being allowed time to play around with camera shots got an idea of which shots looked effective and what shots were lost on the audience. This helped us to then make quicker decisions when it came to selecting a shot to shoot a certain part of the scene with as we now had an basic understanding and knowledge of what did and didn’t look good.

(Overall, how did the prem task, help you with creating your thriller?)
Overall his task helped a lot when creating my own thriller as it gave me the directions needed to produce the film  on time. This is as I was able to make faster decisions over which cinematography shots to use as the task, through trying out an array of shots and techniques, highlighted any error in the way we created the shots so when creating my thriller I was able to rectify these mistakes and only select the best shots we could produce to a high standard to include within my thriller.