Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you
have learned in the progression from it to the product?
Quality of shot
After looking at the preliminary task, it is clear the film
sequence that we have created shows major progression from when we first began
the process. In terms of shot, our sequence is much more complex in terms of
the camera shots and movement that we used in the prelim task. In this task,
the camera was always still besides in one scene where the camera was held in a
POV fashion and this was not steady at all. As shown from the final sequence,
we have massively improved this with the use of much more POV which we ensured
was constantly steady for our effect as well as camera pans to establish the
setting of the scenes.
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| Still camera |
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| Pan camera |
Quality of lighting
In comparison to our preliminary task, we have varied our
choice of lighting and used it to our advantage and effect whilst taking into
account that we were creating a sequence of the horror genre. Due to our lack
of professional equipment, we often had to rely on natural lighting
particularly for outdoor scenes so we tried to go out and film on gloomier days
to suit this idea of horror and darkness. In the house scenes, we were able to
close doors and curtains to block out light as we were not able to manipulate
the classroom in the same way at school. In the outdoor scenes we used the
filters on final cut to make the scenes seem much darker and so this was very
useful. An example of filter that we used in this situation was ‘combat’.
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| No filter |
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| Combat filter |
Quality of sound
In terms of sound, there has clearly been a massive
improvement from our preliminary task to our finished title sequence. In the
prelim task, our diegetic sound in particular speech was poor as we were not
clear enough ourselves but also due to the sound coming from other areas around
the school e.g. teachers talking and doors opening and closing. In our final
sequence, we ensured that the camera was close enough to pick up speech and we
avoided any background noise that could have been about but shutting doors or
re-shooting scenes. This helped us in terms of clarity and therefore would
benefit the audience much more. The ability that we had to edit sound of final
cut pro was also very useful as we were able to turn up and turn down certain
sounds that we did or didn't need. It also allowed us to add in non-diegetic sound in terms of music for the benefit of the audience to create tension
however, we could also add some sound that was classed as diegetic such as wind
in order to make the sequence seem much more realistic.
Continuity
On the whole, our continuity was very good however, there
were a few problems which we dealt with efficiently. One of our characters was
not able to film on a certain day so I filled in as the character but this was
easy enough to do as the face of the character was covered anyway due to the
large cape which represented the antagonist. All other areas of costume were
well dealt with and the sequence flowed well for the audience to understand as
we ordered the footage accordingly to help the audience follow and understand
it.
Preliminary Task
The preliminary task was rather difficult as we had no real
experience of filming when we did it and so we had to think on our feet to get
it right and get a feel for the process. The hardest element of this was to get
all shots correct and for it to flow when you watch it back. We had to re-film
some elements as when we watched it back, one small movement was missing but we
acknowledged that this made a big difference. The match on action was not clear
as I walked through the door and it was shown at different angles so this
needed sorting. This was easy enough to sort out however with a bit more
filming and we took this on board when going into the filming for our final
title sequence.
Overall impression
On the whole I am very pleased with our finished title
sequence as I believe it looks very professional and we have used all the
features and resources available to us to make it the best it could be. I am
very happy with the raw footage that we have picked up as it helps to tell a
short story within the sequence. When put together with filters on Final Cut,
the scenes look very impressive and through the use of costumes we have
identified a clear antagonist and protagonist which creates binary opposition
for the audiences when consuming the text. In the process we can always find
things to improve on and I’d say that worst elements at this stage would be the
titles and maybe the sound. These were the last features that we looked at and
so maybe we were a little rushed however, we found it difficult to make the
titles particularly clear and to cut them into certain scenes for the correct
time that we needed. It was also hard to incorporate all of the sound that we
had prepared. We had to overlap this in some areas and so it is not quite
professional however we did the best that we could using the fade in and fade
out element on final cut pro for our sound.
