Q7: looking back at preliminary.
- 1. Q7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
- 2. Improvements since our preliminary • I believe that our final production is much better than our preliminary as our final product was more carefully planned and drafted. So therefore we were more aware when filming what shots we needed to film and had planned how to avoid us encountering problems when filming. Which we believed was very significant as we wanted to subvert conventions of the genre we were cautious that we didn’t want to go to far away from the conventions of the genre. This was something we did not have to consider with the preliminary.
- 3. Drafting • The drafting and planning of the film are significant as it allows you to decide what your film will look like and what skills we will need to use and who in the group will be est to carry them out. • Through drafting we were able to plan how our film would look and how we would stick to and subvert conventions but still allow our film to appeal to our target audience. • This ultimately makes our film look better and take less time to film as everything you film is pre-planned and therefore more consistant.
- 4. Framing • In our preliminary we had an issue with the framing of our shots throughout our preliminary. So therefore we made this more of a focus when creating our final piece. • As you can see from the pictures below the frames in out preliminary either had a lot of space above the protagonists head which effected the composition of our shot. • So therefore in our final piece we paid more attention to the framing and therefore making the framing and composition of the shots better.
- 5. Editing • Editing is one of the most important elements when creating a film. When editing our preliminary we used Imovie as it was the software we were most familiar with and therefore found easier to use. • However, when it came to creating our final film opening we decided to use final cut pro as we thought that would make our film more advanced and allow us to make our film look more professional and convincing. We believe that using final cut in our final piece allowed us to do this.
- 6. Typography and idents • For our preliminary we used very basic fonts and idents as well as transitions between shots. However, when we created our final piece we decided we wanted to experiment and be more creative with the typography used and we also created an ident. To enable us to get our company name across as well as making the typography easy to read but also reflect the genre of film we were creating.
- 7. Camerawork • Our camerawork used in our preliminary was very static and involved little movements. Making our preliminary seem less eye-catching and interesting for our audience. • So in our final production we decided to use some handheld camera shots and used more varied angles and shots in order to entertain and engage our target audience. Also by the use of point of view shots it helped to engage our audience.
- 8. Sound • The sound used in our preliminary was fairly basic and was mostly focused on parallel sound and only really used sound effects and diegetic sound through the conversations between the two characters in the prelim. • However in our final production ‘article 5’ the sound used was much better and more advanced by using audacity to record a radio news broadcast allowed us to set the scene and give the audience a sense of what the film would be about as well as using the soundtrack to create tension and add to he overall feel of the piece.
- 9. Lighting and colouring • In our preliminary the lighting in our piece was seen as too dark and effected the overall feel of our preliminary as little consideration was taken fore either lighting and colouring in our preliminary. • We considered this more when drafting and creating our final production by changing the colouring to more of a red tone and brightening the lights during editing allowing our piece to look more individual and better suit the context as well as making the images on screen more clear to the audience.
- 10. What I have learnt • From creating our preliminary to our final production I have learnt how to use final cut pro and improve my skills editing generally. I believe that our final production looks better and more advanced than our prelim as we have developed our skills when filming and putting our piece together. This could also be due to the fact of the amount of time we spent drafting our piece as we were able to plan in greater detail what we wanted our piece to be about and how we wanted it to look.