Evaluation - Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From the preliminary task I have learnt so much in terms of cinematography. The different shots we did in the real task compared to our preliminary were so different and so vast. Also in editing and sound I now know much more and I can do many different things. But what I have learnt most about is the amount you can do with mise en scene, especially in a genre themed film.

First lets take a look at the brief for the preliminary task:

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Here's what we created:


Now lets take a look at the brief for the final product:
Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

Here's what we created:

For starters, there's so much difference between the two tasks especially in terms of mise en scene and doing the main task allowed us to be a lot more creative and diverse with what to do. but know that we couldn't have done it and made a product this good if we hadn't learnt from the preliminary task. To start with most of our cinematography is similar other than the fact we had moving shots in our 2 minute film. Without first practicing with the preliminary task we wouldn't know how to do the two shot that we did. We used the two shot in our 2 minute film the exact same way in our preliminary task. This is because we learnt from the preliminary task that it is very effective in establishing the characters and the scene for a conversation. We also used the long shots and the close ups in a similar sort of way, this is because they also were very effective in the first preliminary task. But we did use similar ideas. We have improved a lot in the range of shots we use and the diversity of the shots as we have a lot more different types of shot in the main task so we have improved on the cinematography side which is expected as it's a much longer sequence and having the same shots over and over again isn't good. We have improved a lot in editing, in terms of the continuity. Continuity is broke a bit less in our second film which is good however when we have broke continuity it is a bit more noticeable. In our main task we were a lot better at the mise en scene but we have to be as that is the foundation of our film as we chose a zombie horror. 

There may be similarities between the two tasks and differences too but the bottom line is we have learnt so much from the preliminary task and improved so much and we're now not afraid to be more risky with our shots as they often pay off.