Research and planning is vital to the success of any film production. For the preliminary task, there was little research and planning - the group had a short discussion about what to film and where. However, for the thriller opening there was significantly more research and planning, including questionnaires, focus groups, and plot pitches. Production techniques improved from the preliminary task to the thriller opening. For the preliminary task, the camera settings were not adjusted, but for the thriller various camera techniques were used, such as adjusting the white balance and focus and following the rule of thirds. Post-production involved more advanced editing for the thriller opening compared to the preliminary task. More footage was collected and trimmed down for the thriller, and

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

2. Research and Planning (Pre Production)
• When completing our preliminary task there was very little research and planning that
went into creating the final product. As a group we had a short conversation about
what our short piece of footage would look like and where we would film it, this was
the only real planning that we did before making our preliminary task.
• On the other hand when it came to making the thriller opening we carried out a lot of
research and planning as we had more time to do so and it was vital to creating as
good a product as possible. Some examples of this are questionnaires, focus groups, 9
frames film opening research and group pitches about plot ideas (amongst others).
These all combined to help us establish what a successful thriller opening would
require but also what our key demographic would most likely be.
• What I learnt from this is that research and planning is vital to the success of the
production of any kind of film be it UK independent or Hollywood blockbuster.

3. Production
• The process of constructing the actual text.
• Prelim- picked up camera + filmed, was a simple process and we
didn’t adjust anything on the camera as we were short of time.
• Thriller- When filming our thriller we adjusted the white balance on
the camera, used rule of thirds (on the cam) and adjusted the focus.
• What did I learn? I learnt about the technological use of the digital
camera and how it is used to create more professional looking film
footage.

4. Post Production
• Editing- shaping the text
• Prelim- basic editing- First Touch or Final Cut Pro. After having filmed our preliminary task we
were able to do a slight amount of editing in that we selected the pieces of footage we needed and
trimmed them down to look continuous. We also added music, sound effects and titles using Final
Cut Pro.
• Thriller- when editing our Thriller opening we had to select the scenes we wanted to keep from a
much wider range of footage than in the prelim as we spent a lot longer filming and collected much
more footage overall. We cut down many of the scenes as a lot of them were too long and wouldn’t
allow the opening to fit the two minute criteria. After doing this we added our soundtrack which
was an eerie piano piece we found on YouTube, of which we had to be sure was not copyrighted.
Next we decided to add a black and white colour effect to the footage making it seem much more
mysterious and much less natural. As with the prelim after having put together all the footage in the
right order and adding necessary effects we added titles.
• Throughout the whole process I learned about the importance of continuity editing and what it
actually consists of. The features of continuity editing are the 180° rule, match on action and
shot/reverse shot.