Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final product? (evaluation question 7)

Looking back at my preliminary task, which I made near the beginning of the school year, it was designed to help me to learn basic camera shots and skills such as match on action, the 180 degree rule and other simplistic things. Although the preliminary task helped me learn a lot about filming and actual practical work, it was not until I started my construction for Willa and my thriller film opening.

I started by looking at different thriller openings, such as fight club. Then, me and Willa got together and shared some of our thoughts and ideas, and started to piece together what sort of opening we wanted to create. The film ‘Broken’ directed by Rufus Norris, and other films such as ‘Fishtank’ inspired us. It was very useful to watch these films, because it helped me to learn how to design the lighting, colours, and mise en scen of our film to look as urban and low budget as possible, similar to the films just listed. Also, I learnt how to make the film opening look typically British, in the way that films such as ‘This is England’ and ‘Trainspotting’.

We were taught how to frame mid shots, long shots and close-ups, and what they all meant and the mood or effects they created. We also learnt how to do different angle shots and what they made the characters or scene look like. For example, we learnt that generally, a high angle shot of a person made them look vulnerable, and a low angle shot made them look threatening and in control.

We also learnt how to use final cut pro. Before studying it, I had no idea how to use it as I never had before. We learnt how to use different transitions such as fades, wipes and ripples. Also, we learnt how to download music and sound effects from freeplay music websites such as ‘sfx’ and ‘freeplaymusic’. These are websites which make music that is not copy-wrighted. This is what we needed as we were not allowed to use copy-wrighted music in our opening piece.

We also learnt about digetic and non-digetic sounds. Digetic sounds are sounds from the set which are actually in the filming you do naturally, where as non-digetic sounds are sounds that one adds after filming during the editing of the film. We had a lesson on how to use different types of microphone, and record different sounds.

For my preliminary task, I was not required to use credits or graphics, where as for mine and Willa’s thriller opening, we learnt how to create an ident where we drew a film role and drew each part of it rolling out. We then animated the ident using final cut pro, and added a sound effect we found on freeplaymusic of an old fashioned film role. I learnt the skill of animating pictures when me I animated our storyboard for our film on final cut pro. Also, during the editing of our film, I learnt how to place credits on the screen and how to customize them to look how I wanted in the way of color and style/font.

Overall, I learnt a significant amount of skills in the time between my preliminary task and me and Willa’s thriller opening. The main skills I have learnt are how to use final cut pro, and how to film different shots and stylize my filming and footage to exactly how I want it to look and make sure it gives the effects I want it to give out.