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

I have learnt a lot and developed my understanding to produce the full product. Primarily, the importance of planning for production significantly improved. Pre-production for our Prelim Task was very poor and this lead to problems during Shooting. We lacked organisation in terms of preparing the correct equipment to take and props that would be used. This caused chaos during Shooting, however we thoroughly planned our final product and made sure that all the Pre-Production was complete to a good standard minimising any issues that would perhaps arise. We anticipated problems from our Shot List for example; the Tracking shot used to follow Leo through London. We learnt after shooting our Prelim that the camera’s movement was not smooth and the shot thus suffered in quality because of this unsteadiness. We were able to avoid this issue in the full product by making use of equipment such as a tripod which gave a very nice flow to our tracking shot of Leo as the camera movement was a smooth glide down. This was a significant improvement as the Tracking shot was an element that we incorporated to establish the character and shots that appear of low quality convey a negative message to the audience who then view the product as “amateurish”. We also developed the quality of our shots in general (some were not in focus), especially close-ups. Our Prelim close ups appeared grainy to the audience due to the lighting not being bright enough, we made sure that lighting would not be an issue during our full task as well as making sure all shots were all focused, making our work overall, appear to be a better standard. We did not make use of colour grading during the Prelim task that could have enhanced our work. However to communicate and add to our genre of Mystery we made sure to utilize colour grading; incorporating blue colouring. This development added to the ambience of the location and the genre, thus it was a significant development. Furthermore, another way we developed from our Prelim was by utilizing transitions effectively. For the Prelim task, there was not much requirement for it, but our final product included transitions and quicker cuts which was a clear development that proved to be successful.

 Moreover, one of the biggest aspects we learnt from our Prelim was sound. Due to negligence whilst shooting and the pressure to finish production early we forgot to turn the microphone on which meant that our film had no sound at all. Thus the audience could not hear the dialogue that was supposed to be present. This only became apparent to our group during the editing process and we by then we were reaching our deadline of completing our Prelim and could not reshoot. To overcome this major problem, we thought creatively and decided to convey the dialogue and speech through another medium: subtitles.  After learning how to add text we communicated our speech through the subtitles. Unbelievably it was a similar situation for the final product. Initially we wanted to make use of a voice over showing the characters emotions to match the visual film. We had diegetic sounds of London which worked but each time we recorded the voice over it did not match the visuals and looked out of place rather working in accompaniment. We were able to use what we learnt from the Prelim and showed the voice over’s content by using subtitles but this time they appeared more like a type writer/diary on screen. So we were able to use the lessons we learnt from the Prelim task to create a better full task. And my knowledge of the film making process had improved greatly.

Evaluation: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt a lot about the cameras and Final Cut Pro (the software for the editing process). I learnt how to effectively use the camera lenses by experimenting with the different lenses to find the perfect one; Wide shot being 35mm, Mid shot being 55mm, and a close-up being 75mm. When shooting I was able to use my increased knowledge of the cameras to produce good quality focused shots, displaying depth to the audience.
I also learnt a great deal about Final Cut Pro at first I found it complicated but spending time with the software and exploring its functions I was able to appreciate the capabilities of it. Some of the functions I learnt about was the "Razor" this was a tool used to make clear cuts producing fluency of our film from shot to shot. This was a basic tool, other functions I learnt included adding diegetic sound, subtitles (like a type writer diary on screen), and colouring. YouTube videos and researching helped us to increase our knowledge in these areas, and Final Cut Pro appeared less daunting than before. The colouring was fairly simple, I just had to adjust the mix of colours increasing the desired cold blue colour to add to the ambience. Later rendering the footage made it return to Final Cut Pro compatibility. Thus I learnt a lot about technologies during the film making process of shooting and editing.