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

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

Our preliminary exercise was a continuity task involving the filming and editing of a character opening a door, crossing the room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. Our task should have demonstrated match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.

There are a few criticisms that I realised when analysing my preliminary task.

Criticism 1:

Shot’s move too fast, may confuse my audience as a result. This is a valuable learning curve as I will know not to repeat this mistake in my final film as it will be easier to do as there will be more shots. I am pleased that our shots do not move too fast in our final film, as if they did it would have not have looked as eerie as it does. However, as our genre is psychological thrillers, a quicker pace in shots sometimes had a positive effect on our film for example, when our character, Beth was running to the bathroom. 

Criticism 2:

 When rotating the tripod, there is sometimes a shake. This is a real concern as it looks very amateur and is something I needed to take into consideration when filming my final short film. I believe our final film looks more professional after all the edits and sophisticated camera angles we used. The only time the camera shakes is when we did a hand held camera effect for when Beth is feeling dizzy. This promotes realism and lets the audience see what our characters are feeling through a certain point of view. 

Improvement 1:

The editing style and variation of shots used in the production were improved from my preliminary task. We filmed our film twice as we wanted lots of material to use in editing and to make sure everything was perfected. 

Improvement 2:

Our continuity editing was improved, and really added to the intensity of our psychological thriller. This also made our storyline make sense and improved the realism of our film.

As no non diagetic music was used in our preliminary task, we thought it would make our final film more interesting if we used it. The music created a mystifying atmosphere which really helped show the genre of our film. Our title sequence wouldn’t have been complete without the music we added.

After conducting this evaluation activity it is clear that there is a great different between the two productions. Better editing is used in my final film and this is because our group planned this production and edits for weeks instead of hours. I have improved my directing and film making abilities which will help me as I go onto A2.