1. LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO
YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION
FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?
2. PLANNING
In our prelim, we didn’t have much planning at all, it was spontaneous. We were given
a task, and we went off to take pictures for our storyboard, and then film on a different
day. However, when we were filming our thriller, we had a lot of time to plan for it. This
gave us time to discuss our ideas, and talk about what we think works, and what
doesn’t work. It also gave us time to look through our prelim and pick out any
errors, and improve them, making sure that we didn’t include them in our thriller.
One example of planning that we improved from, was the images we took for our
storyboard. We improved this by making the pictures look much more like the camera
shots and angles we were going to use in our thriller to make it easier to film. The
second example of planning that we improved was the sharing of ideas throughout the
post-production. We would blog any ideas that we thought were good so the rest of the
group could see, we didn’t do this in the prelim. The last example of improvements to
our planning was our research into similar psychological thrillers. We took more time to
research, to make it more realistic, whereas in our prelim we had no research.
3. CAMERA ANGLES/SHOT TYPES
In our prelim we had a lack of certain shots, which we tried to include in our
thriller.
Example, in our thriller we included over the shoulder shots which were
tighter, because we had a lack of them in our prelim. Also we decided to include
more extreme close up’s and close ups to vary the camera shots, because we
we didn’t have enough in our prelim.
In our prelim, we didn’t have much distance between the camera and the
characters because of the way the actors were positioned this didn’t require the
camera to move much. In contrast, our thriller had different camera distances
throughout, because the actors were constantly moving.
Similarly, in our thriller we used different techniques of filming for example we
used tracking and panning to vary the camera filming so it isn't the same all
throughout the opening. We did this because in the prelim we use a variety of
camera techniques, and we thought that including them in our thriller would
make it more effective and successful.
4. LIGHTING
The lighting in our thriller was varied because we shot in different locations, which
were inside and outside, in comparison to our prelim which we just filmed inside, in a
dark room with one spot light. We filmed outside for our thriller because it was more
realistic and it gave us good lighting and so we didn’t need to use any artificial light.
However in the dance scene of our opening, we used dimmer lighting, to create
atmospheric tension. Also we used a phone as a source of light, because we felt
turning on the main lights would be too harsh and would take away the
suspense/tension.
5. SOUND
In our prelim we used actual dialogue, this wasn’t successful because it didn’t sound
clear, and so we learnt from our mistake by pre recording our dialogue in our thriller
to make is sound more clear.
In the dance scene we used non diegetic music which we added in post
production, this was successful because it made the scene more realistic.
We didn’t use any sound in our thriller except the music, because we liked the effect
of silence in our prelim, and we wanted to keep this effect in our thriller.
6. EDITING/TITLES
In our prelim we used fade in and fade outs but when receiving feedback we
realised that having fades in different locations was good, however when they
occur in the same room is doesn’t work well. In our thriller we didn’t use fades
because we wanted to create a different effect.
We used several match cuts which was too many in our prelim, and so we didn’t
want to use as many match cuts in our thriller.
In our prelim we used stand alone titles which we used also in our thriller
opening, because we liked the effect that it created, however in our prelim
between the shots and the titles we used fades in and outs, we didn’t use this in
our thriller, because our thriller was more fast paced than our prelim and we
thought that the fades would slow down the pace.
7. MISE-EN-SCENE
In our prelim we didn’t think much or plan our mise-en-scene. For example the
outfits of our characters weren’t planned, whereas for out thriller because it was
much more planned we could discuss was characters would wear and bring in
clothes/props to suit their role on the days of filming.
Location for our prelim was very basic because we only had a short amount of time
to film it, however for our thriller opening we had more time to plan where we would
go, also producing a schedule for each persons date and time preferences meant
we could be prepared.