Question Seven: What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from your preliminary task to the full product?

Question Seven: What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from your preliminary task to the full product?

Part OneIt is safe to say that the contrast of the two films is very evident in the level of skill we have developed over the past 8 or so months. The preliminary task was taken with no tripod and was some sort of take on a subconscious hand held shot, we saw this as a huge issue after we viewed the preliminary task and were certain that a hand held would only be used with reason other than that, a tripod was used in every aspect of filming. A tripod adds a smooth, clean cut shot and set of transitioning which allows the piece to come together professionally. A hand held is an effective shot when representing an antagonist on protagonist almost chase as it adds to the real element of the situation, bringing it to life.

Part TwoWhen creating our preliminary task, we were more focused on getting it done- we did not take into account any more than achieving the shots. The difference In concept was recognisable through the many things not taken into consideration. However even though as a group we did not seek much inspiration or linkage between our prelim and our final piece, I do believe that in the process between the two we acquired enough skills and knowledge on the piece we planned to make that it enabled us to be very selective and daring with the things we tried out.A lot of thought was taken into account when creating the best possible lighting for our thriller although I do feel that conveying to the conventions of a genre was a more guided route of what we as a group needed to be doing when comparing it to the preliminary task. We thought over the lighting in our film and found that the exposure to natural lighting would be the best source of lighting for that specific part of the film. Prior to this we had tried out filming at a later time of day and tried relying on virtually no natural light accompanied by the use of torches and phone flash. This was in the hopes of creating a piece that oozed realism and could be recognised as some format of an indie interpretation on the Thriller genre but rather oozed unprofessional nonsense so we obviously referred back to our first concept of keeping the feeling light and more of a Fincher Gone Girl vibe.

Part ThreeMaintaining a strong link in our opening sequence between many different factors that helped create continuity in our opening sequence. Lots of factors that came into this; such as perfecting the protagonists appearance throughout the many days of filming, ensuring her parting was the same, her shoes, her make-up, everything had to be perfect down to a T and I could not fault the continuity within our character as it was something we felt was a very important attribute to any film and took very much care in. We made sure the lighting was of continuity, any sudden changes were not evident as the piece was filmed in 2 hour time slots over a period of 3 days. This was done to make sure that the quality of lighting was consistent and only darkened in timed purposeful sections. This is evident from the moment she sets of for her run to the second she is captured. We shot the first few parts of the opening sequence in the brighter natural light, you can see quite clearly as the protagonist makes her way on her run, the sun darkens but only slightly. This was an emphasis of a dark presence being with her and her acknowledgement of it. I believe we successfully captured this by incorporating the use of faster paced shots to accompany the run. It allowed a faint insight on the characters mentality and how she would be feeling that she was never going to get away.

Part FourIn the Preliminary task we kept all non-diegetic sounds, background noise caused the piece to look cheap and bad quality. We took all of these elements that made our prelim unsuccessful in our eyes and played with the concept. We introduced diegetic sounds and kept non-diegetic that rendered the piece to be more effective in evoking spooky feelings. An example of this would be the wind blowing through the trees, we have left this sound audible to generate an atmosphere for the audience watching the protagonist. With prior knowledge from our film preferences and our favourite films we had already known the importance of a score and sound effects within a film in accordance to creating tension, eerie atmospheres or helping provoke emotion from the viewers as a whole. With this in mind and our vision of our film in mind we researched and explored many search engines to find the best collaborative piece for our film that would successfully create the atmosphere we desired. My favourite sound element we incorporated was the music playing from the phone as the protagonist runs. It adds a great disconnect between the protagonist and antagonist which leaves a genuine element of anxiety within the audience. The music we chose the runner to be listening is: The Girl is mine Remix by 99 Souls. We felt this had a very close link the potential narrative and could be foreshadowing the events to come through the possessive nature of the song. It is also an upbeat song that totally contradicts her situation.

Part FiveI feel that the preliminary task was something that allowed us to express our GCSE knowledge of filming and the simplicity of capturing footage, but as the year has progressed our ability to adapt our knowledge to a concept of a genre is evident. We worked very hard on the many different aspects that go into a film- preserving a narrative, characterisation, iconography, mise en scene and lighting. These were all elements that came together through the progress of understanding our audiences and familiarising ourselves with the techniques needed and utilising them to provide a piece of better quality with more general appeal.