Monday 28 March 2011

Evaluation, Task 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

To produce our Thriller it took a vast amount of preparation and planning to get it to a state where we were pleased with the product. To compare it to our preliminary task which took us a few days our thriller took us about a month if not more time to create.

We put together a folder listing our

  • props 
  • cast
  • location details
  • storyboards

However in our preliminary task we had 2 sheets of a storyboard in which we used a cast of whoever was available on the day and any props that were available in the theatre department. Our thriller storyboards we had to draw and design ourselves, giving details of location, type of shot and how long the shot will be going on for. Unlike our preliminary task where we were all given basic storyboard templates, on which we had to work around.

Filming

For our filming we had to set up a track which ran through the whole of the room and position it in a way so that it would cover all the angles where we wanted to get our shot in, for example when the camera tracks around the box so as to get the reactions of the audience when the blood comes out. Unlike in our prelim task where we had four basic camera shots so that when it came to the editing it would just be simple clean cuts, unlike our horror, which was more complicated as when it came to the editing we had to layer the sound so as to create the effect that it was in a large bar with a large crowd.

The use of After Effects played a huge part in our thriller as this gave it a dated look so as to fit the time period as we overlayed two versions of the footage to make it look hazy, along with putting the footage in black and white and then cutting around the blood to put it back into its original colour of the red, to make the footage more visually stimulating for the viewer. In our preliminary task we didn't even touch the After Effects software, so to use it for our thriller as a new tool was very interesting and really brought our thriller to life.


Here we can see the difference from my preliminary task opening which consisted of a plain sheet of paper with our names hand written on it, along with the negative space around the paper. If we compare this to our title card for our opening sequence in our thriller we can see how this opening look is more proffessional drawing the audience in to watch it compared to our preliminary task.



 

Here we can see the first shot that we have of two people in the shot as the importance of the screen. we can see above in the prelim task that there is lots of negative space around the two characters and looks uninteresting for the audience, however if we look at the shot below we can see that there is less negative space with the two characters as there are other items in the shot to fill it up, for example the magic box.



            



Here is a mid close -up from each still in the prelim and the opening sequence, with the lighting on the boys face above we can see that the lighting was too bright and un-naturalistic, compared to the shot below where the lighting is quite dark to project an eeary effect.




In these two shots we can see the object of importance for the storyline, the gun in the preliminary and the magic box in the opening sequence, for this we can see that the smoothness of the shots ran a lot smoothly in the opening sequence, unlike the shot above which felt very fake and sticato; against the rest of the plot.



Comparing our closing shots between the two sequences we can see how much has improved with the quality of the work as the last shot of the opening sequence is more spooky and endearing and powerful compared to the preliminary task which finished with the same two people in the shot, however both plots of the story finish on a cliffhanger so as to carry on the story.


During this process I have learnt a lot of new techniques and have made a vast improvement compared to the prelim to the opening sequence, For the opening sequence I was able to use after effects, soundtrack pro and recordings to enhance and make the sequence better and more impacting on the audience than the prelim










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