Question 7
Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt in the Progression From It To the Full Product?
So, during the time between our preliminary film and our final piece I believe that we have progressed quite far in terms of the overall structure of the creation of our film, this includes the; editing, camerawork, sound, and misc-en-scene, as well as the work done in the 'pre-production' period.
Firstly, the camerawork, which as my area of focus in both productions, I think was greatly improved between the preliminary and final product. For example; most of the shots used in the preliminary film were all static, steady shots, making the film feel very fixed and almost uneventful, despite the action which was shown on screen, as the camerawork was simply not representing what was actually happening in the film. In the final piece, however, I made an effort to use a greater number of dynamic shots at appropriate points during the film, such as the pan and tracking shots as the boys left the house to basically mimic the movement of the boys and therefore putting the audience on the side of the two boys as they leave the house with them. Also, I tried to stray away from the constant use of steady cam shots that were used in the preliminary film. This is shown in the final piece as I used a couple of handheld shots, one example being the shot from behind a tree showing Joel walking his dog, which I used to place the audience in a sort of spying position and create a sense of potential threat for Joel's character. and another being the use of a handheld camera for when the boys find the body hidden in the rocks as it helped create a sense of instability and tension as a result of the movement of the camera. I also tried to make use of a wider variety of shot types as during the preliminary the only shot longer than a medium long shot was the single wide shot at the start of the film, so throughout the final piece I insured that greater range of shots were used, from the closeups of Theo piecing up torches to the extreme long shot at the start of the film, and the high angle long shot as the two boys enter the quarry to name but a few.
The changes to how we conducted our pre production was also a result of our learning from the preliminary piece as we found our storyboards to be largely lacking in content, and as a result many of the key shots I had to think up as we filmed, and although our final piece was still somewhat lacking in a fully detailed storyboard, and many of the final shot types and techniques were finalised by me during filming, the storyboard allowed the group to properly understand the development of the story and how it should appear towards the end of the project.
The editing in the preliminary was also heavily built upon, as during the preliminary we almost forced the storyline to contain the required media techniques: the shot-reverse-shot, eyeline match, match on action, and 180 degree rule. And as a result the examples in the film were shown to be quite basic and fairly obviously forced due to the smaller time of the film. However, during the filming of the final piece I was able to choose shots that placed into each of the techniques in a more natural way and therefore the techniques were more developed as I was able to build upon shots and use further techniques such as the 30 degree rule which was ignored in our preliminary film. I think the colour correction in the editing was also improved as in the preliminary we only used the correction for two of the outside shots and as a result most of the colour was almost out of place, like having a bright, well light bedroom for a thriller scene, for example, was obviously outside of the genre. Therefore, for the final piece I suggested using a hard light filter as well as decreasing the colour of a number of the scenes in order to better create tension and fit into the thriller genre because of the correct misc-en-scene.
I think the choice in soundtrack was also learnt upon as in the preliminary we used constant non diegetic music throughout the piece and, although it fitted well with what was happening on screen, I believe that reduction of non diegetic in the final piece sound was also a good choice as it allowed Theo, our sound editor, to better make use of diegetic sound such as the whistling wind, as well as placing the audience in the characters shoes as what the characters were hearing is what the audience would hear and that would help increase the tension. Also, the reduction in the natural sound was also a good choice on the part of Theo as the microphone we used picked up very heavily on the sound of the wind and it made cuts far more obvious as shown in the conversation between Joel and Seb in our preliminary in which the sound of the wind is so obnoxious it actually detracts from the actions in the scene.
Finally, the Misc-en-scene I think was also greatly improved upon as I think the setting of the old quarry far better matches the genre than the setting in the preliminary as we found that having characters feel more isolated from the world is commonly used in the thriller genre to create tension and as a result having our characters next to a building and a car park may have detracted from the sense of mystery and as a result we decided to isolate the characters a bit further to increase the tension. Also the costume and props were greatly improved upon in the final piece as we realised that having a school uniform was probably not a young person might casually wear out so war focused on having clothes that we might wear ourselves for our characters so as to properly set the tone of the film.
The changes to how we conducted our pre production was also a result of our learning from the preliminary piece as we found our storyboards to be largely lacking in content, and as a result many of the key shots I had to think up as we filmed, and although our final piece was still somewhat lacking in a fully detailed storyboard, and many of the final shot types and techniques were finalised by me during filming, the storyboard allowed the group to properly understand the development of the story and how it should appear towards the end of the project.
The editing in the preliminary was also heavily built upon, as during the preliminary we almost forced the storyline to contain the required media techniques: the shot-reverse-shot, eyeline match, match on action, and 180 degree rule. And as a result the examples in the film were shown to be quite basic and fairly obviously forced due to the smaller time of the film. However, during the filming of the final piece I was able to choose shots that placed into each of the techniques in a more natural way and therefore the techniques were more developed as I was able to build upon shots and use further techniques such as the 30 degree rule which was ignored in our preliminary film. I think the colour correction in the editing was also improved as in the preliminary we only used the correction for two of the outside shots and as a result most of the colour was almost out of place, like having a bright, well light bedroom for a thriller scene, for example, was obviously outside of the genre. Therefore, for the final piece I suggested using a hard light filter as well as decreasing the colour of a number of the scenes in order to better create tension and fit into the thriller genre because of the correct misc-en-scene.
I think the choice in soundtrack was also learnt upon as in the preliminary we used constant non diegetic music throughout the piece and, although it fitted well with what was happening on screen, I believe that reduction of non diegetic in the final piece sound was also a good choice as it allowed Theo, our sound editor, to better make use of diegetic sound such as the whistling wind, as well as placing the audience in the characters shoes as what the characters were hearing is what the audience would hear and that would help increase the tension. Also, the reduction in the natural sound was also a good choice on the part of Theo as the microphone we used picked up very heavily on the sound of the wind and it made cuts far more obvious as shown in the conversation between Joel and Seb in our preliminary in which the sound of the wind is so obnoxious it actually detracts from the actions in the scene.
Finally, the Misc-en-scene I think was also greatly improved upon as I think the setting of the old quarry far better matches the genre than the setting in the preliminary as we found that having characters feel more isolated from the world is commonly used in the thriller genre to create tension and as a result having our characters next to a building and a car park may have detracted from the sense of mystery and as a result we decided to isolate the characters a bit further to increase the tension. Also the costume and props were greatly improved upon in the final piece as we realised that having a school uniform was probably not a young person might casually wear out so war focused on having clothes that we might wear ourselves for our characters so as to properly set the tone of the film.
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