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

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

 

Looking back at my preliminary task there were a few basic errors that could have easily been avoided. I was looking to make sure that I didn’t make the same mistakes in my thriller opening task. There was one big mistake in the preliminary where we broke the 180 degree rule. This could have been avoided easily. Another mistake we made was not having the camera still which again could easily been avoided. I was keen not to repeat these mistakes in my thriller opening. We did not plan the preliminary task as thoroughly as we should have. Therefore I was eager to plan my thriller better.

 

My planning for my thriller wasn’t quite successful as I had to change my location and shooting days several time due to weather conditions. Unlike the preliminary task I decided to use varying camera angles and shots. For example I used a lot of slow tracking shots in my thriller that I would not have used in the preliminary task. When filming in my house there were several things that had to be moved around as they were in the way and also they did not seem right in the scene. I had to move some furniture around to film from the places in the room that I could get the best shots and angles from. For the shots in the house I had to have all the lighting on as without it the smaller props such as the car keys and the shoe laces would not have been seen by the audience otherwise.  

 

To prepare for my thriller I feel I should have experimented more with camera angles, lighting and props in my prelim. Had I done this I feel my thriller would have been of higher quality. I did experiment with camera angles in the thriller. Several shots of the car were taken with the camera tilting. I did this to add to the sense of speed and rush in the driving parts of my prelim.

 

The preliminary task did not have a soundtrack and was just dialogue between the two characters. I decided to avoid dialogue in the thriller opening as it would take away the tension and weaken the bleak atmosphere of the thriller opening.

 

I feel that I did not have the substantial amount of footage that I needed to make my thriller better. I had to edit heavily as I was missing plenty of shots that I needed. I needed a lot more shots of the attack scene and a couple of shots of the car being driven away by the attacker. I was very pleased with the shots of the car as I feel I used some interesting camera angles and shot types. However I feel that the shots of the attack sequence were not quite as good as I had hoped as I left it too late to film those shots, this meant that that particular session of filming was rushed and the shots were not of good quality. The weather also played its part in that sequence as it was very windy but due to poor planning on my part I had to film that night and therefore had to use the better shots from that day.