Evaluation - Question 7

Overall I feel that our opening sequence went well and part of the reason for this was because we had extra preparation in the form of our preliminary task. Our preliminary task and final task did differ in many ways.

 When making our preliminary task because we knew we had far less time to make it we decided that the best thing to do would be to keep it simple and include all the elements that we had to without making things too complicated. This meant that our preliminary task was very unimaginative and therefore boring to watch. When it came to our main task, however, as we had far more time to create it and there was more freedom we let our imaginations run wild and it allowed us to be a lot more creative.

As we were appealing to an audience in the main task we focussed more on what the audience would like and want to watch, rather than just the technical elements, which is what the preliminary task was mainly focussed on. 

As we had far less time to construct our preliminary task we were much more accepting of mistakes in it and used them as improvements for a main project. However with our main project as we did not have another chance to improve so we wanted to make it as perfect as possible therefore we were far more critical and noticed a lot more things when it came down to analysing it.

 After we had constructed our preliminary task we approached the main task very differently and changed many things.

Changes From Preliminary to Main Task

• Planned our time better
• Lots more takes when shooting
• Closer attention to detail with storyboard and shooting script
• More critical
• Booked location in advance
• More aware of sound
• More aware of continuity

 I felt that our approach to the main task was far more professional than the preliminary exercise. It was a lot more replicable of what the real film industry would do whereas with our preliminary task it was far more amateur. We were aware of a lot more things and were more understanding of just how time consuming it is to make a sequence look good, therefore we planned our time better.

For the preliminary exercise, as we were pushed for time we begun our project immediately, ruling out the process of doing detailed planning. However when it came to shooting, it meant that we were far more unorganised and this therefore took up more time because we did not have everything ready. When it came to doing our main task, it made us realise just how important planning was and therefore we concentrated on it a lot more. We felt that it would be better to spend time planning and avoid all the chaos on shoot. If we would have not done the preliminary task we would have not known to do this, and therefore the real task may have been a lot more disorganised.

When shooting our preliminary task we thought that no matter where we wanted to shoot it would be available when we wanted it. When it came down to shooting, most of the rooms in the media block were being used which meant that our original plan for our sequence could not go ahead. This meant we had to improvise and were very limited on what we could and could not do. This taught us that when we were shooting our main task, in order to achieve the desired outcome, always check in advance that your location is available when you want it because then it will save time when it comes to shooting.

When making our real task we found that we were far more aware of the continuity in the background, whereas in our preliminary we were only really focussing on the actor’s continuity. When we watched back our preliminary footage we noticed that despite the actors being in the correct position for each cut, if the backgrounds did not match up then the scene is still not plausible to the audience. When it came to shooting our main sequence we were far more aware of the background and cleared out objects that would affect the continuity of the sequence. We always watched back shots to make sure that there was nothing in the background that should not have been there or to make sure there was nothing missing. Our preliminary task taught us that the scenery is just as important to continuity as the actor’s actions and gestures.

When we watched back our edited footage of the preliminary task, it seemed fairly uninteresting to watch. Due to this it inspired us to approach our main task with a lot more thought and care about what we were actually going to do with our opening sequence. Before we had constructed our preliminary task I did not think that it would have made that much of a difference but now comparing it to our main task you can clearly see the difference in care and thought as one creates a certain atmosphere and grips the audience from beginning to end, whereas one is fairly usual and does not make you want to watch on.

When looking at our final finished sequence, although we were aiming to make it perfect, there are still a few mistakes with the continuity that we picked up on that hopefully the audience will not notice. One of these mistakes was when there is a shot of the girl outside being watched through a window you can see a cars headlights in the background heading towards the house, however in the next shot you never see the car pass the house. Logically it could work because the car could have pulled into a driveway but really the continuity is wrong. Another mistake of ours was at the very end when there is a shot of her hand opening the door, when it cuts to the next shot she has the wrong hand on the door. It is not hugely noticeable as in this shot you do not really concentrate on her hand but if you watch it closely enough it looks strange. The last mistake that we noticed was that in the shot where she enters the bedroom the door is left slightly open, however when it cuts to the next shot the door is completely closed. A few people who watched it noticed this but we were unable to find two shots that matched up perfectly so we just had to settle with the least noticeable one. This taught us that we should have taken more takes and played them back after recording them just to check that there were not any mistakes that would alter the overall look of our project.

If we used this main task as another preliminary exercise there were a lot of things that we could of still improved upon. For example our lighting in some of the shots, mainly the ones upstairs, was not strong enough so you were unable to see clearly what was happening. If we were able to do it again we would try and figure out a way of brightening the lighting, without creating a shadow or making it look too artificially bright. Another improvement we would have made was using different angles. A lot of our shots were straight on and therefore could sometimes get quite monotonous and boring. Although it fitted with the storyline and did the job of telling the story, if we had experimented a bit more with angles we might have got a deeper insight into the story and maybe made viewing more interesting for the audience.

Overall I think our project went extremely smoothly and well and I do not think that without the experience we gained from the preliminary exercise this would have occurred.