The student learned several key skills when progressing from their preliminary media studies task to their full thriller film project. For the preliminary, they had only one hour to film and edit, whereas the thriller project allowed weeks of filming and editing. While the preliminary piece did not flow as well due to inexperience, it allowed them to experiment with the editing software and camera. This helped them apply techniques like match cuts, shot reverse shot, and the 180 degree rule more effectively in their larger thriller project. The preliminary also helped them gain comfort with editing tools like slow motion and speeding up clips. Overall, the student improved their filming, editing, and storytelling skills from the initial preliminary task to the full thriller film.

1. Looking back at your
preliminary task, what do you
feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full
product?
Question 6

2. Prelim
• At the beginning of the year during Media
Studies, we were all set a prelim task.
• The brief of our prelim task was as follows ‘This is
a continuity task involving filming and editing a
character opening a door, crossing a room and
sitting down in a chair opposite another
character, with whom he/she then exchanges a
couple of lines of dialogue. This task should
demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot
and the 180 degree rule.

3. Prelim/Editing
• For our prelim we only had one hour to film and
an hour to edit. Obviously compared to our thriller
opening, this is hardly anytime at all. Even at the
time it didn’t seem that long as none of us were
used to using the cameras and none of us had
ever used the editing programme (Final Cut Pro)
before. Looking back at our prelim now, you can
tell we had no idea what we were doing! Although
we followed the brief, the final piece didn’t flow
very well and we didn’t use final cut pro to its full
potential.

4. • Looking back at our prelim and comparing it to our final thriller
opening we can all tell that we have learnt a lot of key skills
whilst filming and editing along the way. Although we had
weeks to complete our thriller opening and a couple of hours
for our prelim, the skills we learnt from doing our prelim helped
us in our final piece.
• Whilst doing the prelim we were able to slightly experiment with
Final Cut Pro and therefore in our final piece we knew certain
things we could try. As well as this, we were able to experiment
further during editing our opening. Our grid idea of having the
nine separate ideas, seemed impossible to do at the begging
of the editing process, but after we had experimented with
certain things, it all came together and we were able to do what
it was we wanted.
• This time round we had two weeks to edit, so as a group we
were able to make sure that our final piece was just how we
wanted. Also the effects like slow motion and speeding up clips
was now straight forward, compared to our prelim where we
found it difficult.
• In our thriller opening, we were able to include many editing

5. A few shots from our preliminary

6. A few shots from our preliminary