Q7

I feel like between the preliminary and final production task my filmmaking has progressed as I have picked up a number of skills. And these span from knowing to add effects knowing to how to cut clips depending on how you want them to effect the viewer for example quick cuts create tension for the viewer where as long clips won't create tension or suspense for the viewer. I have also learnt how to use iMovie to a better effect. By knowing how to add different transitions to how to add titles to a shots. I have learnt that when creating a thriller you need to cut your shots quickly as this keeps the footage flowing and also more aesthetically pleasing and keeps the viewer engaged and not have them becoming uninterested. Not only this but I have also developed the number of shots that I used within my footage and also what type of shots create different types of feelings for the viewer for example a close up of a bloodshot eye will create tension and suspense for the viewer along with enigmas as it makes the viewer think what could the character to be looking at and why do they look scared/shocked?

I have also learnt about a number of rules and also composition techniques within filming. When it comes to composition you can use either rule of thirds or the golden mean. Rules of thirds is when if a grid were to be placed over a shot all the points at which the lines cross would be the most important points of the shot which help to emphasise certain parts of shots and make them stand out more to the viewer. The golden mean is another composition technique you can use and this is where I important points within a shot are along a diagonal line that could be put on the shot. If certain things are placed along this golden mean line then just like the rule of thirds will stand out to the viewer and make these objects or aspects of the shot more important to the viewer.

Continuity is a large part that should be ensured to be followed when filming. What it is ensuring that the shots flow nicely together and make sense and on top of this they also don't look like they were filmed at competent different times. A bad example of continuity is say for example a shot is filmed in bright sunlight and then the following shot that still links in with this scene is suddenly in the dark. The reason why this is bad continuity is because it sticks out to the viewer straight away that the shots weren't filmed to flow well and can also make the shots to look unprofessional and take away from the film looking good. In our prelim and final production continuity was achieved within both as we were able to film all the shots which we needed on the same day and this allowed us to achieve our continuity to a good level. There is however one place where our continuity slipped in our final production and this is when pushing up the safety there is nothing in the background but a short time later when the trigger is pulled there are some bags in the background which weren't realised at the time. This is one thing we should have realised when looking back at the footage before leaving our filming site. The 180 degree rule is important in film and the reason for this is because it allows the viewer not to become confused with who's who in a scene. So if this rule is followed then everyone and everything in the scene can be seen and nothing can be confused as to who's talking for example. We broke the 180 degree rule a few times when filming both the antagonist and protagonist but this didn't cause any confusion for the viewer and reason for this was because there was only one person in each of the shots meaning that there was no confusion as to who was in the shot which meant that despite breaking the rule it didn't cause us any problems.

In our preliminary task we didn't break the 180 degree rule once meaning that we did better with the 180 degree rule within our preliminary task than we did in our thriller I think the reason for this is because we were concentrating on getting all the correct shots we needed and we were also having to film more and also working again past time constraints which caused us to forget about some of the fundamentals of camera work.

When it came to editing within both our preliminary and thriller opening there were more

elements put into thriller opening than in our preliminary and some examples are titles being included in our thriller opening along with filters being placed over shots to create a mysterious feel to the whole scene because we wanted to create greater effects for the viewer and also there were a lot more things going on. In our prelim we simply put our shots together and didn't give them any effects and only used diegetic sound of voices. Where as in our thriller opening firstly we put a filter over the protagonists shots as this helped to create a sense of mystery regarding the protagonist which is essential in a spy thriller. Within our thriller opening. We didn't use any diegetic sound within our thriller and the reason why was because we realised we didn't have the correct equipment to obtain good quality audio which would add to the effect of the opening so we won't used non-diegetic sound which was in the form of both the soundtrack which wasn't seen in the preliminary and also a gun shot when the trigger was pulled in our thriller. When it came to props they were both used in the prelim and the thriller opening but in the thriller opening the number of props and the thought over the props was much deeper than in the prelim. What is meant by this is that in the prelim we only used scraps of paper as our props and that was it where as in the thriller opening we used an air rifle which was used to great effect to make the protagonists character more believable. Along with the air rifle we still used paper but in the form of two peoples secret files and these were thought about a lot more as they had notes on the description of someone and also had finger prints on them to make them more realistic. A large number of props were also included on the table on the intercutting shots and these worked to great effect to create an effect which could be seen to cause the viewer to become slightly scared as these props could be used for torture for example. All In all the props for the thriller opening were thought about a lot more as we needed to create certain effects with them where as in the prelim we weren't using props for effect but just to add more substance to the prelim.

To organise what shots we were going to shoot in our prelim and thriller opening we used shot list for both but these contrasted greatly as our thriller opening had a shot list containing over 40 different shots whereas on our prelim shot list there were only around 15 shots that we had to film.

In our final thriller opening I feel that there were both strengths and weaknesses. The first strength that we had was that I feel that our story line really progressed from our prelims storyline and this was definitely a good thing as it caused us to be able to engage our viewer more than we could have ever done in our preliminary film. On top of this we really developed the number of both props and the meaning of each of the props a lot from when we filmed our prelim as we just used scraps of paper which didn't have anything on as a prop in our preliminary task where as in our thriller opening we thought of props which could be used to create effects and also to make characters in our thriller more believable instead of making them seem boring to the viewer also the props that we used were more likely to attract the viewers’ attention and an example of this could be the air rifle we used and the reason why this attracted more of the viewers’ attention is because it was more interesting and it is also a gun which is a weapon and can be used to cause damage. I think we progressed with sound from our prelim to our thriller opening and what I mean by this is that the sound we used was of better quality and actually properly contributed to creating effects within our film. What I mean by this is that the soundtrack that we used help to create a good amount of tension and suspense within our thriller and also help to keep a good tempo and pace due to the drum which was included, which helped the shots to haven good continuity and flow nicely making them more aesthetically pleasing. I felt that another strength which we had was that the quality of of film was actually better as the images were crisper and I feel that this was due to the fact that we had better lighting than in the thriller opening than in the thriller opening and this was mainly due to amount of natural lighting which we had. However on the contrary I feel that a weakness of ours was that we didn't use extra sources of lighting when filming the shots within the house of the antagonist as they ended up having noise within them which we should have learnt from when we filmed our preliminary as we had the same problem there but this is something to learn from in the future. Another weakness that I think we had in our thriller was that we didn't use any film make up even though we didn't use any in our prelim tasks. I think the way that we could have used film make up was by creating somewhat of a gunshot wound on the back of the antagonists head and the reason why I think we should have done this is because despite seeing the gun being shot by the protagonist and the antagonist dead a better effect could have been created by showing that the antagonist definitely was shot and he is in fact dead and this would also help to create better effect to the viewer and also make them feel stronger visuals as they would be able to see the damage that the gun has done to the antagonist. Finally the last weakness I think that we had in our thriller opening was that we didn't include all the shots that we wanted to in our opening which meant that we didn't have all the substance to the story that we wanted and also didn't have the huge variety of shots that we wanted to include, I think some of the shots that we wanted to include would have given the film even more effects in the way of tension as for example one of the shots was showing the gun bag being unzipped and this type of shot would have helped to create tension and suspense as the viewer would be waiting to see what the protagonist is pulling out of the bag he is unzipping. A larger variety of shots would also have helped to reduce the chances of our viewer becoming bored and not wanting to be engaged with opening.

All in all I feel that there are a number of shots which prove that we have come a good way from our prelim and become better in the quality that we are producing using all the aspects of editing, camerawork, and sound to create a film. One shot which stands out the most to show our progression is the close up of the protagonist pulling the trigger and then when looking at our preliminary the close up of the hand opening the door. The shots have progressed by both looking so much better when it comes to quality as in the prelim the shot is grainy and looks plain boring where as in our thriller opening the shot is clear, there is a filter over it to give it a mysterious look due to the spy thriller genre we are aiming our film at. Not only this but the shot in the thriller opening is so much more interesting for the viewer to watch as it shows a gun being shot which is a lot more interesting than a door being opened. Along with this the gun shot contains non diegetic sound which is better quality and sounds good and further reinforces the gun being shot creating suspense and tension whereas the door opening shot in our preliminary task used diegetic sound which is bad quality and doesn't add to the effect of the film at all.

In conclusion I feel that there are many aspects which we have improved on from our preliminary to our thriller opening and this included things such as the sound which is included in our thriller opening to simply putting s filter over shots of the protagonist to create a mysterious effect.