Question 7Looking back at your Preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

So what has changed?

The change between the Preliminary task and the Final cut of Fighting to Survive has massive changes in acting, editing, camera work, sound and most importantly storyline.

The Acting.The Acting.

The acting in the preliminary task was poor because there was no script and it was our first time acting in front of the camera which made it even more difficult. We also decided that we didn’t need a tripod which made recording much more difficult than it should have been. We also didn’t record the shot more so when we did record a bad shot we didn’t have any second options. In our final piece we recorded every shot 2-3 times depending on how confident we felt with the shot. We also decided not to speak in our opening scene because we felt it was unnecessary because the music was the most important part. This also gave us less of a chance to mess it up. I think the roles we had to play in the final scene we enjoyed more than the Prelim task which I think improved the acting as well.

The Editing

The editing on our prelim task was rushed at the end because our recording took longer than expected. It was the 1st time I used adobe premiere as well so we wasn’t used to using the software so our cuts from each shot wasn’t as sharp as they needed to be which made it look tacky and the prelim task didn’t flow as well as we wanted it to which made it look un professional.

On our Finished opening scene I had a lot more time and experience to edit the opening scene so I knew what I wanted to do with it. I made it professional by making the cuts between each shot flow as they showed the two characters mornings. I also added titles which we didn’t do in the prelim task which made it look like an opening scene and I was able to show off some editing skill as well.

The Camera shots

In the Preliminary task we didn’t use a tripod when recording so some of the shots were unstable and looked very poor and unprofessional. We also didn’t plan very well the types of shots we was going to have in the prelim task so our task didn’t look as good as it could have done with some more planning. We also didn’t record the shots more than once or watch them over so when it came to putting it together I had to work with one set of shots along with the short amount of editing time caused it to not look as good as it could have done.

Learning from our mistakes we made sure that we recorded every shot more than once and watched them over. We also did a story board for the opening scene so we knew how long each shot was, what type of shot it was and what we had to do in each shot. We also had a tripod so every shot looked professional.

The Sound

In the preliminary task we didn’t cut any of the sound out of our shots. This made some of our shots sound quality bad which brought down the quality of the Scene. We did however add some sound effects to add tension to the film but looking back we could of used some better ones as the sounds do not suit the scene as well as I thought they did at the time.

In our final product we cut out all unnecessary sound and decreased the overall volume because our main sound was the music which is a key part in setting the mood in the opening scene. This was there wasn’t any poor sound and the viewers would be more focused on the song which is what we wanted.

The Storyline

In our Prelim task our storyline was very vague and reminded me of nightmare on elm street so I didn’t think it was that original. We didn’t spend enough time thinking about it which is why it was difficult to record and make it look the way you want it to.

In our final opening scene we made a storyboard so we knew exactly what to do, how long for and why type of shot it would be e.g. close shot. We did make adjustments to this though as some of the ideas didn’t suit the scene we was going with or we just wouldn’t be able to pull off.