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

I have learnt a lot in the progression from my preliminary task, to the main film product, & these videos show that. I'm going to explain how I have improved the titles, music, transitions & locations from the preliminary task to the main task and what I have learned in the progression from the preliminary task to the main opening...

                                 

   Preliminary Task - 'The Deal'                                               

Main Film Opening - 'Loanshark'

Titles...

We have definitely improved on our titles from our preliminary task, to our main film task. We chose a plain simple font, which did not match the genre, this time round, we chose a font which looked a lot more interesting, and really matched the genre of our film opening.

The colours were also very bland, we chose black, and had the text over black & white moving images. We changed that, and instead went for a metal coloured title, with a black background. We thought, after we had done the preliminary task, that the audience may not be able to see the text clearly, and we had to change the colour, so it was easily visible. This made it seem inconsistent, so we decided for our main opening, to go with a black background so it's easily visible & it looks a lot better than before.

Transitions...

We chose to use the same transitions used in our preliminary task. We thought they looked good before, and we also used colour fades, they allowed us to easily transition between text clip and moving image, without looking too odd, or digital. We kept the transitions the same length, and learned that certain transitions can signify the meaning of a scene, for example flash back transitions. We didn't use digital transitions as we knew most films nowadays don't use digital transitions, they use cross cutting, fades and super imposing to go from one shot to the next. 

These clips show the same transition we used, in this case we used cut to go between one shot to the next shot, in both the preliminary task and the actual opening. We thought that this looked really effective and wanted to use it in the actual task. I think we did it a lot better in the actual shot than we did in the preliminary task. 

Music...

In the preliminary task, we used music from YouTube, and credited the artist in the credits, we had to look hard to find music which we thought would really fit. We ended up going with a dramatic piece of music, it did fit in with the genre and what was going on on-screen. When it came to getting music for our main task, we decided to enlist the help of some sixth form music students to help create our music. We told them we wanted something dramatic, but using guitars, drum & base, and some sad piano music. When we got the finished pieces of music we were amazed at how good they sounded. I think the music we used in our preliminary task wasn't as good as the music we used in our main task, and the music we used in our main task was fitted a lot better with the genre, than the music in our preliminary task.

I also learned that sometimes you have to edit music with another editing software before placing it on your film. In the preliminary task there were periods of silence, and the cutting of music was awful as I couldn't fade out the music, and I didn't know I could use audacity at the time. When editing the main opening, I realised that I had to edit the music first before I could use it, therefore I was able to include fades in and fades out, and there weren't long periods of silence instead. 

Locations...

We were restricted in where we could shoot, we decided it would be easier filming in school, as we were all busy outside of school, we managed to make some areas look quite convincing, such as the kitchen scene, which was actually shot in our common room, and the field shot, which was shot on out school field. I think we chose our locations a lot more carefully this time compared to our preliminary task, as in some scenes, it still looked like a classroom, rather than a meeting room. However, when I got the feedback, I noticed that some said that a variety of locations could have been better, so in future, we may think about filming outside of school.

Overall I think I have learned a lot & improved from the progression from the preliminary task, to the main task. My editing skills have definitely improved, so has my camera skills, I definitely have improved the planning, and thinking about what location would be good, how to set out a shot, what to include, how to layer the titles, and have improved my teamwork skills. My analysis skills have improved, and since doing media, I have learned to look at the small things when watching films and TV shows, I notice the different shots, the continuity, music, transitions, titles etc. and has really opened my eyes and made me think more about the production of films and TV shows.