Evaluation of Finished Production - Question 7

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

Looking back at our preliminary task, we noticed a lot of errors, and vast amounts of work of a poor quality. When comparing the task to our thriller opening, we can see a big improvement in every aspect of our work.

Our preliminary task was not really prepared that well, as we only had half of our storyboard completed. This meant that when we were going to film, we had to improvise and make the shots up as we went along. This resulted in a lack of variety with regards to the type of shots and angles used. When we prepared our thriller, we made sure the storyboard was completed, so we knew exactly what shots we had to shoot. This helped us later on in the project, as we always had a handful of shots to select from, as we not only filmed the shots on the storyboard, we also added a few spontaneously.

Sound was a major stumbling block during our preliminary project. When we were editing, we were not able to hear the sound properly, so had to guess when to cut the sound. After we uploaded the piece to YouTube, we noticed that the sound lacked continuity, and some of the dialogue was cut off. To prevent this from happening again, we made sure that the computer we were working on had functioning speakers. Moreover, in some scenes, we also used the sound from one of the pieces of footage, and used several different shots. This provided us with the continuity we were after.

One way we could have prevented the sound problems in our preliminary task would have been to add music. We did not use music at the time, which meant that we had to keep the sound we had already. We used music in our thriller opening, however. This created a tense atmosphere, and meant that our thriller wasn't boring, and held the audience's attention.

The quality of our shots was something we wanted to improve drastically. Our two pan shots were of a low standard, which meant that overall, the piece was also of a low standard. We worked hard on our filming technique, and often filmed scenes multiple times to make sure we had the perfect take.

Our editing skills improved drastically, as we began to understand the types of transitions and effects available. This helped our product reach a higher quality.

During the filming process, we also tried to improve our framing, by obeying photographical rules such as the rule of thirds. This would make our thriller more pleasing to the audience's eye, and give the piece a more professional feel.