The student learned several important lessons when comparing their preliminary media project to the final product. They learned about the importance of cinematography techniques like shot types and camera angles to make scenes more interesting. They also learned to be more thoughtful about mise-en-scene and only including relevant objects in shots. Through editing the final project, the student gained skills using Premiere and learned the impact of titles and sound design. By applying these lessons, the quality of their filming, editing, and overall production improved greatly from the preliminary to final piece.

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

2. PRELIMINARY TASK
We shot our preliminary task at the beginning of the school year
with very little knowledge and experience. I had never used a
DSLR camera before or Premiere. Some people in my group had
studied media at GCSE so I learnt through them and also just
practicing.

3. WHAT I’VE LEARNT?

4. CINEMATOGRAPHY
• I learnt the importance of cinematography and how different shot distances
and angles can make a scene more interesting and also more dramatic.
• In the Preliminary task I knew this and tried to use a range of different shots
and angles but they didn’t all fit with what was happening at that point. Taking
this into account in our final construction piece I made sure that the camera
angles and shots that we used were appropriate to what was happening
which made the final piece look a lot more effective.

5. SHOTS FROM PRELIMINARY

6. SHOTS FROM FINAL PIECE

7. • As you will be able to see from the shots in the two slides a lot of the shots we used
in the preliminary task were close ups or medium shots which were simple and didn’t
hold the audiences attention.
• However taking this into account when filming the final piece you can see the shots
used are a lot more varied and we also used angles. For example the top right shot
is a high angle long shot.

8. MISE-EN-SCENE
• I also learnt the importance on mise-en-scene and how important it is to make sure that
everything that is in frame during a shot has a reason to be in it.
• For example, in some shots from the preliminary task we didn’t think about it and some things in
the frame aren’t relevant. This can be seen below where there is a black bin in the back of the
shot.
• We did make this mistake again, in one shot my cat was in the background which was
distracting to the audience and took their attention away from the conversation that the two
people in the scene we’re having, so we didn’t use this shot in our final piece.

9. EDITING
• I learnt how to use Premiere and all the devices in it to edit the sequence and create
titles.
• I learnt that titles have a huge impact on the effect the title sequence leaves on the
audience. This is why we went back and changed our titles font and movement and
position so many times so that they looked the best they could and really had an effect on
the audience. We put a lot of effort into the titles because after looking into the title
sequences like Se7en and seeing the titles in that it really set a standard to what we
wanted to achieve.
• We didn’t even use titles in our Preliminary as they were something that we didn’t know
how to do . All we did was put a very basic ineffective one at the beginning.
• As you can see from the two shots below we also used effects and changed the colours of
shots and were overall a lot more creative with the editing in our final piece.

10. SOUND
• Something that we didn’t effectively use in our preliminary task was sound
and after research into the horror genre that is one of the key conventions of
horror.
• We used music in our final piece at the right times to engage the audience
and help build suspense. We also used a mixture of diegetic and non
diegetic sound which my group in the preliminary task didn’t do, mainly
because we didn't’t know how to.

11. HOW I’VE DEVELOPED
• I think that my camera skills have developed the most out of everything as at the
beginning they were poor and shaky compared to the actual filming where everyone
trusted me to film most of the shots. To begin with I got confused about the 180 degree
rule and would often break it making editing hard or in some cases the whole group would
have to go and re film. I soon understood this and remembered it every time we filmed
and often found myself reminding others of it. This meant that the continuity of the
sequence wasn’t broken and it improved the quality of our piece.
• I also feel that my editing skills have developed since the first time I edited using
premiere. Below you can see the difference in detail there is editing compared to before
and what there is now.