1. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in
the progression from it to the full product?
During the time I’ve had on this course I’ve learnt a lot that helped me in my final piece. This
is evident in my preliminary task. In my preliminary task I hadn’t done too much in the way
of sound effects because I didn’t know how or when would be appropriate to add them.
This meant that when I was showing my film to audience they got a little bored because of
the fact that there was nothing in my film that got their attention. I learnt from the
feedback I got from my peers and so in my final piece I had to learn how to find and add in
sound effects so that I could have a much more entertaining piece to show them. This was
evident because when I had showed them my piece, I had got feedback saying the sound
effects worked very well and that they were ‘really into it’.
Also within the process of making my film I have managed to analyse films and incorporate
them into my film. For example, in my preliminary task I never added in shots with any
meaning but now since I had learnt how to analyse films I had learnt about the ‘Breakfast
Montage’ in Citizen Kane. I had managed to incorporate this into my film because in my film
I had a scene where two people, either side of a long table, to represent the distance and
difference in their relationship which happened in the ‘Breakfast Montage’ where Orson
Wells decided to do this to show the lack of communication in the couple’s relationship and
eventually the end of their marriage.
Citizen Kane My Final Piece
When I made my preliminary film, my scripting needed work because I didn’t choose the
right words to reflect on the situation however since this I have worked on it. I had made my
script beforehand with many stage directions, this helped my actors know what I wanted
them to do and when. I didn’t do this in my preliminary task as I told them to improvise the
stage directions, I immediately saw this was a mistake as when I got feedback on my
preliminary task they said I need to ‘work on the blocking and movements of my actors’ so I
knew I had to improve on my final piece. So after getting this feedback I had learnt from it
and later used it to its potential.

2. When I first started the course, I had never been on any editing software before so when I
did to make my preliminary task, it became as quite a shock. So this was evident in my
earlier film because there were some bits in my film that didn’t flow as well as I thought
they should’ve because I didn’t get the basics of it. I also didn’t know how to transition each
scene or how to add effects and to see if they work. However since my preliminary task I
had learnt that I had to improve on this to access the higher marks so I did research the
software. This became apparent in my film because, for example, with my flash backs I had
transitioned them so that they flashed white either side of the scene to show the audience
that they were flashbacks. I also cut my scenes so that they were fluid with each other.
Finally when making my preliminary film I didn’t know how to create titles which I knew I
would need to know how to in my final piece. So when it came to my final piece I had learnt
the basics to Adobe After Effects to create my titles. This is a skill I will need for later on
because it’s a program which will be convenient in the future as it will help me in other
aspects of my film like putting other effects on my scenes. For example, below are my titles
for my final piece that I did in after effects which I could do for my preliminary task.
Final Piece
In the future I would like to learn how to put different shot types together. This is because I
felt that in my film I had a severe lack of different shot types. This was also proven by some
feedback I had ‘I felt that you could’ve had much more variation of shots in your film’.
Having a lot more shots would allow my film to flow a lot more fluently so it would look
better. For example, with the shots below, the one on the left is my preliminary shot and is
very shaky and the zoom doesn’t flow whereas I did a similar shot in my final piece and I
made it more fluid and not as shaky.
Preliminary Task Final Piece

3. Another effect that I would want to later incorporate to one of my films in the future would
be to change the colour gradient. Changing the colour gradient of my clips would show the
audience how the actors are feeling and what sort of social situation they’re in. for example,
if there was a dark dingy housing estate it would represent to the audience that we are in a
bad part of England and if it was a sunny beach, it would show the actors are having a good
time. I didn’t have much colour gradient changes in my film so when the clips changed there
wasn’t much in the way of telling the audience how everyone was feeling in surroundings.
For example, below are two photos, in the my prelim task I should’ve put a change of colour
in the scene to show the audience that something bad had just happened whereas with the
murder scene on the right I changed the colour to black and white so I could show the
severity of the scene
Preliminary Task Final Piece
Finally something which I would very much love to develop later on in the future would be
to improve on my time management. Time management is vital when making a film because
without it, everything will come at once which would cause stress which would result in not
my best work. When making my film my personal time management wasn’t the best by far
because everything did pile up towards the end which did cause me a little stress. So when
making another film in the future I will have to improve on this so that I can optimise the
production of my film. I also would need to have a much more detailed schedule and one
that would be realistic to me. This is so I can complete my film on time and avoid stress
when doing my evaluation and such.