Evaluation Questions

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

Firstly, when filming the main task I felt that I needed to add more variety with the camera angles I chose. I discovered how the camera angles can be used as a method of representing a character and how much power they have on screen. Another improvement I feel I made when filming was the use of more camera movement, for example more 'pans'. Although I feel this helped set the scene, I feel more pans could give the audience a clearer picture of what the scene or the environment looked like for the opening scene. The final improvement I felt I made when moving to the main task was that I made sure that the characters were speaking clearly when filming. In my preliminary task some of the sound seemed distorted and it was unclear as to what they had said. However after saying this when filming the main task I felt the sound was clear and easy to understand.

Editing was also improved in the main task as I added more titles at the beginning in order to make the product look more professional. I feel this did do a good job and although I felt afterwords there should have been more, it did improve the quality. The last improvement to the editing would be that I could have added smoother transitions in order for the clips to flow and create a good sense of continuity.

Overall improvements that were made were that I did not want to over complicate the narrative and prioritised making it easier to follow. However saying this I felt another improvement that I made was showing details with the audience that would not be visible in the preliminary task. An example of this was explaining the plot so that the audience was not confused at all by my unfolding narrative.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

To create my production I needed to use technology in order to achieve the most professional outcome. These technologies have been simple to use and have given me the best results I could have asked for.

The first piece of technology was the Nikon camera we used to film our scene. It was easy to operate and gave a quality picture at the end, highlighting detail that some cameras would not pick up. Also there was the tripod we used when filming. This was very effective as it allowed us to keep the camera absolutely still and stopped the picture from shaking and gave a more professional look to the final product.

Next was the program used to help us edit. I used apple's ‘iMovie’ which I found very user friendly and gave a great idea as to how well filming went after we put all our clips together. It used a layering system which allowed you to place videos, pictures and sounds together on top of each other. It also allowed you to put in smooth transitions. For example a fade and cross dissolve effect to open the scene. This made the film flow better and made it easier for the viewer to follow the story line.

Finally, the last piece of technology I would make reference to was fireworks. This program allows you to make animated videos through drawing pictures onto a layer. Once you have multiple layers you can play them one after another to create an animation effect. I used this in my production to show what production company we were using (like, for instance, Universal, 21st century etc). I called it 'Road End Productions' to meet this convention of a thriller and it had an animated image next to it. This improved how professional the final product looked.

Evaluation - Question 1

Main Task - Final Edit

Main Task - 4th Draft

Here is my 4th draft for my opening of my thriller, the changes I made from my 3rd draft:

1. Added more titles such as “Costume and makeup by...”, “Cinematography by…” etc
2. Moved the title closer to the front of the opening
3. Changed the fonts on all the titles so they were all the same and were clear to read 

Some of the feedback I recieved from this was:

"Your "executive producers" title says "executive produces" (this wS  typo). It was suggested that I might look at  the soundscape at the end cos that it continues and fades out rather than cutting off relatively abruptly?"

Main Task - 3rd Draft

Here is my third draft for my thriller opening, the changes I have made are:

Stabilized shaky footage at 0:43

Added clip of killer spying on protagonist

Added clip of killer jumping out and grabbing protagonist so ending was not as sudden

Made the titles stay on the screen for longer

Added more titles to spread across the whole of the opening

Added knife slit sound effect on death scene

Here is the feedback I have recieved from this draft:

1) To take out the phrase "staring" at the beginning as  it is shown later, which I thought could be changed to "co-starring" when the other names appear (starring spelt wrong!). Remove the 3rd starring too.

2) The font for the titles does not appear to be the same throughout the opening - this needs to be consistent

3) I received a suggestion that the title of the film should be near the beginning and that the final black screen you had the "directed by" bit. This would then fit with the conventions of an opening sequence. I found a really helpful link on the internet: http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-duke-of-burgundy/ It was suggested that I replicate the order of the titles of this opening, then it would appear more professional