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

I think the main skills I have developed in as a film maker is the technologies we had to used to create our product. I think this as it was all new and my editing ability has become more confident since the prelim task as I only used basic techniques for the preliminary, where as for the thriller I used both imove and final cut to make it the highest standard possible.

Our preliminary task was a success and achieved good continity for our first piece of work as it uses a range of shots and we managed to put in a graphic match. However it could have been improved as the 180 degree rule was not stuck. We made sure we didn't make this mistake again in our thriller by using a line on the board as our 180 line. However it was difficult to stick to as we needed shots of names all around the board and it meant that at point the some of the names would have to have been upside down. We also had a problem with continuity in our prelim as we had to take one of the shots again as it was not right, however we had difficulty getting the background to look the same and there was a large amount of stacked cups in different colours. Another thing we improved on our thriller was the use of music in time to clips as for our thiller we tried putting a chant every time the snakes appeared. Editing the shots to sound was a skill i developed as for the prelim task i placed the soundtrack over the footage just to make it fit, however this time we had done more research which showed that editing sounds to shots is really effective.
We didnt have any problems with match on action for the prelim and we tried to carry this success through to our thriller.

We really improved on our planning for our thriller idea as we narrowed the idea down using questioniares and powerpoints so we had a clearer picture of what to plan for and what shots we wanted. Although we did discard some shots from our narrative ,(treading on the board) the story made more sense without it. When editing some of the shots were not as good or realistic as we had hoped and so were also not used. Our first story board for our prelim was easier to understand however when our thriller story board was paired up with the shooting script it was very clear. We also went to our location and took photos to help up plan out how we would take the shots and what it would look like.

Our Prelim task went very well, no one in our group had any prior learning of any part of the media industry or how to use a video camera and tripod. Doing our Prelim task helped us to be confident using the camera equipment, basic shots and learn how to use imovie effectively. We tried to ensure all the shot were effctive by using all the knowledge we had learnt about good mise-en-scene and composition.

For our thriller opening we had to use much more complex shots, mise en scene and lighting as we had to really think about how to make it fit thriller conventions. Overall our thriller was a  success, although it was not entirely conventional it still showed some conventions such as a dark mysterious character who is a main villain, it has a psychological element as it incorporated fears and phobias, it also worked well together to make a creepy atmosphere and build suspense by editing quicker towards the end. We could have improved our thriller as the quality of the shots were not always brilliant. This was due to the lack of light in our location, although we did check it out beforehand, the day of shooting was quite dull and it was hard to get the light to pick up on camera. We tried to resolve this problem by propping a door open and adding extra candles to brighten up the shots, although the candles provided little light they still looked very effective in the shots. The other main thing we could have improved was the stability of the shots as they were often very unsteady due to problems with the tripod. We had to take the camera off the tripod for some shots as we could not get it at the right angle at a low enough height, although this affected the quality of our shots, it was vital to get the shots we had planned. We tried to stabilize the shots using I movie, however it was impossible to make them look completely steady.

The main strengths of our thriller was the unique idea and unconventional themes, this was the general good point we got from interviewing people after we had showed them our thriller. The other good things about it were the use of mise en scene to make the character seem realistic and fit thriller conventions by wearing black and disguising the face with a hood. The contact lenses were the main costume use as they were meant to scare/thrill the audience and they were used for the reveal of the characters face. The weaknesses of our thriller were the poor lighting and unsteady shots as they lower the quality and overall standard of the production. They were things we could not do much about once editing and so had to make the most of the clips we had.

In our prelim task we used a graphic match of a mug and a biscuit to show connection between them. For our thriller we also used a graphic match between the eyes of the person, snake and dice.

We also used another new programme when editing our thriller to make the title called final cut we used it to make two shot into one show a snake behind the title name.

The main thing we have progressed with since doing our prelim task is with knowledge of the subject and how to use camera shot to create meanings for the narrative such as using low/high angle shots to change someone’s power and how graphic matched can show connections between things. As well as this we also found that going from a comedy western to a thriller required a lot of different conventions and therefore needed a whole new mise en scene to create the desired genre.

(prelim screenshot) (thriller screen shot)