Evaluation 7

Looking back at your Preliminary Task, what do you feel you have learned from it to the media product?

During our Preliminary task I learnt and developed my basic filming skills involving how to use a camera and tripod effectively. This was my first opportunity to practise different skills such as 180-degree rule, match on action and dialogue. Fortunately, we understood how to incorporate the 180-degree rule and so it was implemented successfully.  We also used a shot reverse shot so help the flow of the dialogue and so it was easily understood who was talking to who. The preliminary task was helpful to me as it gave me a chance to improve my continuity editing on Final Cut Pro which boosted my confidence, without it I may not have been able to edit effectively on our final opening sequence.

There was diegetic sound on our Preliminary task but it was limited which was a downfall for overall. Without practising this in our Tea Project we struggled to record dialogue in the opening sequence. If we had used more dialogue in our Preliminary task we may not have had to re-film some sections of our opening sequence which would have saved us time. However, we did record some dialogue in our Preliminary task but it was not easily audible. From this we learnt to ensure that each actors/actresses spoke loud enough so that the actors/actresses were not misunderstood.  The actors/actresses also had to have a clear voice in the opening sequence as we were overlaying a soundtrack to the opening sequence. This soundtrack was required for our opening sequence as it is a convention of horror as it creates tension therefore our actors/actresses had to speak clearly.

In our Preliminary task we did have a set script to keep the continuity as best as we could which helped us when editing. However, in our opening sequence we did not memorise a set script, we decided to improvise most of the dialogue. We initially felt this was a good idea as we could keep all the footage even if one of the actors/actresses messed up if the footage was still useful. Unfortunately, having done this we realised in the editing sessions that some of the dialogue did not match up and so we had to re-film some footage. We did not learn for our Preliminary task to have a rigid script but we know for future filming that dialogue must follow a certain path.

Our Preliminary task was filmed in one go on the same day so costume was not an issue. However, we filmed the opening sequence on two different occasions and so it was needed that we wore the exact same clothing. Unfortunately, on the second day of filming Matt wore a different style of clothing and so we had to re-shoot most of our opening sequence. Although we had to re-film some of what we had already shot, we feel it was an improvement from our original version therefore improving the quality of our opening sequence.

On our final opening sequence piece is we feel good however there are a couple of unfinished edges we should change to improve the final product. This includes the lighting and coloration in one scene. We attempted to change this shot from a bright image to a warmer feel to match the rest of the shots. Unfortunately, this particular shot somewhat matches the rest but it is clear there has been a filter on it.