Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt from the progression from it to the full task?

The schematic shows the axis between two characters and the 180° on which the camera may be positioned (green). When cutting from the green arch to the red arch, the characters switch places on the screen.

• After doing the preliminary task and then the film opening, I would say that a full aspect of media production was not met due to the time provided to complete the preliminary talk and the simplicity of it.

• For the preliminary task it only took 1 and a half hours overall to complete filming, and only 2 hours to edit. In comparison to the preliminary task, the main task was on a much longer time scale and took more precision.

• Time management was also an issue in the production of the preliminary task and this was highlighted in my initial evaluation for it. Therefore we made sure we already outlined our weaknesses so that we didn’t make the same mistakes again. An example of this would be that for the preliminary task we had to film over a 2 day period, and on the second day the actor did not come to film wearing the same costume. This was highlighted in the video where there is a sudden change of costume. In the main task we made sure there was continuity where this was concerned.

• The lighting in the preliminary task was produced by mainly natural light and artificial light from the lights in the corridor. However we took more consideration into lighting in our film opening as there are two distinctive changes in lighting in both of the locations we used. In the bedroom we used artificial lighting such as candles and fairy lights whilst the room was already naturally lit due to daylight; and in the studio we used only artificial light whereby we turned all the lights off so it was pitch black, and then used one spot light with a blue filter on the male character. Although in the preliminary task we did not alter lighting at all, we just filmed as it were.

• We did try and use a variety of different camera angles in our preliminary task, such as high angle, mid shot, long shots and close ups. However the way in which they were edited and placed together is what made the video seem extremely basic in comparison to the main task. No transitions were placed in the preliminary task so smoothness and continuity was reliant on the filming itself.

• On the other hand, in the main task we took more care into choosing specific camera angles which would be appropriate to the thriller genre after researching different film openings of the same genre.

• Also within the preliminary task, my group made attempts at including attributes of film work found within existing media products such as the 180° rule which is used in order to keep the audience from becoming disorientated, and can follow the flow in which the characters are undergoing, all from the choice of direction the camera is using. This however would not have been suitable for our film opening as the dialogue sequence does not have both characters present in the same location.

• Sound editing was an important element in our film opening, however in the preliminary task we only had the dialogue as diegetic sound and we did not add any other sound effects during the editing process on Final Cut Pro. I took great time in finding the sound that would be suitable for our film opening as my main objective when editing was that the sound would have to fit the thriller genre. Not only this but with the nature of our film it was crucial that the sound was full of suspense to represent the male, but also very soft and delicate to represent the female.

• Also the video recorder we used for the preliminary task was not of high quality in comparison to the video recorder we used for our film opening. In the preliminary task we used a Legria FS306 (left), whereas for the main task we used a Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ100 (right).

• By looking at the timelines for both the preliminary task and the main task, you can see that the preliminary task timeline is very simplistic compared to the main task which has a lot more complexity and features.

Preliminary task timeline

Main task timeline