Q7

I feel that I have developed greatly as a film maker, I took media at GCSE and so I knew some of the key terminology however I never had to make or produce a film which meant that I had no experience of this before my preliminary task.

I also came across new technology when editing my preliminary task, I had never used any editing software so at first it was hard to use iMovie, however once we had started using it and we had to learn quickly about all of the functions and features of iMovie. Once we had used it a few times and we had got used to it, it was much easier for us to use. I felt that our preliminary was very successful as it was a practice run at using the macs and the cameras; it gave us a chance to learn from our mistakes and practice using more advanced camera shots and then we could see if they worked and if we should use them again. However if I could go back and redo my preliminary I would try to make it flow more and use different cuts, as we only used straight cuts and simple camera angles so it got quite boring. I would say that our final production is a better quality than our preliminary as we were more prepared and we were more adventure’s, we tried to use more cuts and we added effects in between shots so that it looked more like a thriller and not just jump cuts to the next scene.

We also thought more about lighting and we made sure that we used lighting to create mood and tension, we did research on other similar thriller to see what good effects they use and how they use conventions. We decided that we need to think further into costume as in our preliminary you could see our clothes under our costumes so we had to make sure that the costumes were covering our full body not just our top half partly.

 We developed in the range of shots that we used; we also learnt how to use the tripod more effectively and how to make sure that all of our shots were steady. Having a wider range of shots meant that we had more variation and we didn’t have to worry about only using a basic range of shots and the production being boring.

We thought much more deeply into the setting and the background of the shots, in our preliminary task you could see the actors cloths as well as the costumes, we had to change this so that you could only see the costumes. In our preliminary our shots weren’t framed very well as you could clearly see the setting behind the character did not make sense and it did not follow the plot of the production.  When we made our final production we had to make sure that we framed our shots correctly and we had to make sure that you couldn’t see anything that we didn’t want the audience to see or that didn’t relate to the plot of our production.

In our preliminary we didn’t stick to the 180 degree rule, this is where the camera doesn’t cross from one side of the room to the other, this is used so that the audience won’t know what is going on as if a character is holding something in his left hand, when the 180 degree rule is broke the character will be holding that object in his right hand which then confuses the audience as they don’t understand why it has swapped sides. We managed to stick to the 180 degree rule in our final production but not in our prelim. If I could improve our prelim I would make our shots flow better so that it looked more professional and I would make sure that we followed the 180 degree rule as then the plot would have made more sense. The match on action is important as you have to make sure that the props and costume fit into the genre or else the story and plot will make no sense and the audience will be confused. As our genre is action we had to make sure that we used props that related to this, therefore we decided to use guns as that appealed to our audience and it made sure that it contained some action. 

  

 

 

When we were trying to come up with ideas for our final production we came up with all the ideas together as a group, we had to decide first on our sub-genre and we all watch and enjoy action thrillers so we decided that was the best genre for us to do. Once we had come up with the basic idea for our thriller we had to decide on a name that linked to our idea. Once again we decided this on a group; after we had all submitted various ideas we decided that the best option was to call it ‘on the run’ we chose this as for our plot it is a man that is running away and hiding from a group of soldiers/ the army/ the police or a swat team. It also gives the audience a sense of mystery as you don’t learn any of the characters names or who the men work for and what the man on the run has done to be in this position. This leaves the audience with questions on their minds which makes them more likely to want to watch the full film. I feel that from the use of more advanced skills and from thinking deeper into the planning of the production meant we could increase the length and increase the audience appeal. Our preliminary task was 1 minute and 24 seconds, whereas our final production was 1 minute and 51 seconds. The mise-en-scene of our final production is also greatly improved as the lighting in our preliminary was just whatever was in the place we recorded; we didn’t alter any of the lighting to add mood and effect, other than in our final scene.  In our final production we used the lighting much more effectively to create mood and grab the audience’s attention. The props that we used were also greatly improved; in our preliminary we used small plastic guns whereas in our final production we used replica air-soft guns so that they look like real guns which made it look more professional and more realistic.

Overall I feel that our thriller was very effective as it is a very unique idea that grabs the audience’s attention and it makes them curious about the rest of the film; it makes them ask questions about the characters that you don’t find out in the opening titles. We used a range of camera angles that gave the titles variety and we used different cuts so that the audience didn’t have to see the same thing multiple times. The only improvement I would say is that we should have started filming earlier in the day as it was very dark when we started filming so we had to rely on the lights at the location and any lights we had brought ourselves. The reason we couldn’t film earlier is because the location that we was using didn’t close to the public until 4:30pm which meant that we couldn’t start filming till about 5:00pm which meant that it was already dark when we wanted to start filming. The main strengths of our thriller is that because of the plot being a man running away and hiding from a group, we didn’t want the audience to see too much about him or loads of his face/body so using lots of fast paced straight cuts meant that the thriller flowed easily and it ran through nicely compared to our preliminary. We created the music ourselves and I would say that this was one of our strengths, it helped to create the mood and the pace of the music fit in with the pace of the action in the plot.