1. Evaluation Activity Question 7 Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product? J’Nae Phillips

2. Looking back at our preliminary task we have done, I realised that I have learnt a lot and progressed. In doing the preliminary exercise I realised that it was a very small task compared to what we were asked to do for our final product. For our final product we needed to do a lot more work and a lot more thought and time was taken into doing this. I realise that we have progressed a lot in each of our individual roles in doing our final product. I developed well as a Producer organizing tasks, filming, and when certain things have to get completed. We planned our preliminary exercise together as a group with a script and storyboard, after doing each of these things we were then able to begin producing it and we started filming. Doing all of this preparation enabled our preliminary to go to plan and flow well. We noticed that we made a few mistakes and are able to tell what we need to improve on in our final production.

3. In doing our final production we undertook a far more detailed planning and production process for our thriller. I produced a detailed Research Document, in this research document I done things such as interview our target audience to find out their interests as well as doing in-depth questionnaires (qualitative data) and producing charts/graphs (quantative data) thus making my data easier to analyse. This more detailed process of doing things help us to produce a first class and top quality thriller opening, for the reason that we had done a lot of research prior we then knew what we needed to do to put our own stamp on the thriller genre. We knew better what we needed to do – and this time round we also knew the reasons as to why we were doing it. We knew when certain things needed to be done and how they needed to be done. This helped the whole of our process to be more official.

4. Editing When we first edited our preliminary, there were no special effects or anything interesting it was just simple transition from shot to shot with a variation of different cuts. In our opening sequence to a thriller film, there are a range of special effects which we all decided upon together as a group to use. We have used slow motion as well as speeding certain things up – fast motion. Also we have made certain things shake and flash (including text and whole frames). We have made sure that our match on action shots graphically match, helping to establish a strong continuity of action linking the shots metaphorically. Also, we have ensured that the continuity in our opening sequence is spot on and everything comes and the correct times and placing. We have used editing techniques such as zooming in and out.

5. Camerawork Doing our preliminary exercise was our first time using cameras and tripods properly and we needed this experience so we would get used to using the equipment and knowing how it operates – we would be using this equipment to make our final product. In our camerawork in our opening sequence to a thriller film we were more experienced with the cameras enabling us to get better quality action, thus making filming, run more smoothly and efficiently. We have learnt to vary the position of our camera to achieve a wide range of variety, show things in more detail, strengthen or to merely hide the fact that a cut has happened. We wanted our opening to remain realistic so we had practical shots contributing to the realism and overall effect of our opening. We have used an establishing shot to set our scene as well as a variation of shots sizes – close-ups, mid shots, long shots, two shots, over-the-shoulder shots, medium shots etc. Depth of field is the distance between the nearest and furthest objects in a scene that appear sharp in an image, we have large depths of field making the entire image sharp we also have some shallow focus.

6. Lighting In our preliminary exercise we did not really focus on lighting a lot as it was just a short task for us to familiarize ourselves with certain equipment and to know how things run - in addition to this didn't really need any specific sort of lighting as it was simple action. Whereas in the opening to our thriller film we decided to make it completely black and white on a greyscale to add more tones and shading, highlighting certain things. I think that it also adds to the authenticity. We also used a redhead light and bounced it off of the ceiling so that the lighting was not too harsh. We decided to use harsh lighting as it creates shadows and creates more tension whilst adding a sense of suspense and horror. Most of our lighting was artificial as it wasn't in an outside location.

7. Sound I have learnt a lot about sound in making our final product. In our preliminary exercise we simply used the sound of the footage that we were recording – nothing was added to it. Firstly, on our final product we decided that we wanted to use a soundtrack , for the reason that in most openings to any film you will hear a asynchronous soundtrack then are able to associate this certain soundtrack with a specific film. We have made sure that the sound in our soundtrack or incidental music is synchronized and fits the action playing on this screen. We used a specific soundtrack then also added our own sound making it unique and individual, we decided to use distorted and eerie sounds thus creating a sinister and spine-chilling atmosphere. We choose the soundtrack we did and edited in a certain way for dramatic effect as the plot occurs.

8. Mise-en-Scéne Our location for most of our mise-en-scenes have been inside an ordinary house contributing to the realism of the opening. Our set design was simplistic, the type of design you would expect to find in an ordinary household with children. We had our actors dresses in normal everyday clothes, we didn't want anything extraordinary or which stood out because this would not make our thriller opening believable. The colour design of our set was simplistic and plain wall paint or wallpaper, we also had ordinary small beds and a simple set of stairs.

9. I now feel confident with all of the post-production and production equipment. Overall, I believe I did most of the organising for our production and post-production although we worked well as a group together complementing each other and giving help whenever needed. We worked professionally together and as a good team, we all took our professional roles on and took responsibility for what we needed to do. I feel that our end product is successful in meeting the requirements of our brief, and I think it compares well to professional products.