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

SETTINGMy preliminary task was about a spy whose mission was to successfully bring back the ‘dice’ which had super natural powers without letting anyone else get hold of it. The setting which I used for this scene was in a school environment and in particular a class room. I chose this location as it was realistic and the fact that the character is in a large building with lots of places where he could get killed added an element of difficulty with the mission and this was successful at engaging the audience with the film. However the location wasn’t the most ideal place I would have liked my film to feature in. ideally I would have had the scene in a dirty, rundown building and add effects which makes the building look like it was about to fall down so therefore if I was to re-film the preliminary task, this would be the change that I would make.

SETTINGContrasting my preliminary film to my real film opening in ‘Pure Vengeance’ I believe that the location was better suited to the target audience in pure vengeance. This was because it was able to conform to the idea of real life media products for my genre of action and this was evident through the rundown building for the prison cell in the middle of an excluded forest. The idea of a outback building which looks like it could have been used for torture punishments is surrounded by greenery such as trees and this adds an effect on camouflage with connotes what is the happen later in the film as they ‘blend’ in with their surroundings in order to find and assassinate their target. This therefore shows that I have learnt about choosing a setting which relates and fits in with my film genre to make the film look more professional.

COSTUMES

the costumes in my preliminary film were casual. This was because the spy was undercover and didn’t want to bring attention to him that he had this very high value good ‘the dice’. The actor was wearing blue jeans with a coat and this makes him blend in with his environment and therefore no-one will know who he is. However I did use the coat for the main actor as this covers his top half of the body and underneath the coat he could have weapons and armour should he need to fight off any attackers. But by wearing this coat it doesn’t look like there is anything unusual and this helps with the idea of camouflage. In my film opening to ‘pure vengeance’ I have kept to this idea of normality and this is evident with the very similar clothing.

COSTUMES Like in ‘The Dice’ the characters are wearing dark jeans with

coats and this is all for the same reasons. The idea of not standing out from others and blending in is also a major role in my film pure vengeance and after seeing that this technique worked successfully in my preliminary I have decided to do this again. These costumes do conform to the conventions of action films but also challenge them as sometimes actors in action films wearing protective padding and this was not used in my film opening. However I believe that the setting worked equally well in my preliminary task and my film opening and what I learned was that by having effective clothing techniques it can highlight to the audience the points you are trying to put across.

ACTORSThe actors themselves were all used for specific reasons. In my preliminary film ‘The Dice’ I used Nathan Litchfield as the character of the undercover spy. This was because he is a normal person who wouldn’t stand out from anyone else. Therefore this enabled me to use him as camouflage and the fact that he doesn’t look menacing could be used to imply that the people trying to kill him won’t know that he has the dice. The other character that I used in ‘the Dice’ was Callum Balfour and he was someone who was looking for the dice and intimidated Nathan into handing over the dice. I used Callum because he looked more menacing and was physically bigger than Nathan adding this idea of power and strength. Neither of these characters had previously done film work which was why I wanted to use them as I didn’t want to make the film looked acted, I wanted it to look real and this was effective as they didn’t know about any acting techniques.

ACTORS

After reviewing the preliminary film I decided to use Callum again as the main character in my film ‘pure Vengeance’. The reason for this was because I believed his acting skills in my preliminary film were good and I believed that his appearance could work well in the action genre film. The risk was worth taking and again the actors successfully filmed how I wanted them to. Therefore I have learnt that by choosing actors who haven’t done previous film work can pay off if you are trying to get that idea of ‘real life’ across.

LIGHTING

throughout both my preliminary and real film openings there was no differing lighting. This was because both openings were filmed as if it was the same time in the film and therefore there were no need for altering the lighting. I felt that the lighting was not appropriate for the film genres and therefore deciding not to challenge the genre conventions. I have learned that the lighting is effective for certain genres but there is no point putting different lighting in films which simply do not need it.

SHOT TYPESthe shot types in my preliminary task were relatively simple and easy for the audience to view. These shots consisted of over the shoulder and shot-reverse-shot predominantly and there wasn’t really a variety of different shots. This maybe could have been improved through the use of different and fast paced shots as this could have added an element on tension and suspense in the preliminary film when the main character was getting intimidated by the other man. Therefore if I was to re-film this scene I would use a range of different fast paced shots to add tension and make the opening more engaging for the audience. However in my real film opening I changed this and included a range of different camera shots with fast paced scenes. This is because I learned through the preliminary task that fast paced shots engage the audience closer into the film and are more effective. Therefore I used a wide range of shots in the real film opening and I learned how these play a large role in keeping the audience interested in the film.

PROPSFor my film I had a wide range of props as I believed they were effective in conforming to the conventions of action genre products. I had weapons and this was to indicate to the audience that the film was going to contain violence and this conforms to action films as there are usually fights and guns. However for my preliminary film ‘the Dice’ the only prop which featured was the dice. This was because there was no need for other props as the film was centred around this dice. Therefore I didn’t want to include lots of props as I felt this would distract the audience from the main point of focus which was the dice. However what I learned from my preliminary film to my real film opening was that props should only be used when necessary as this could get in the way of the storyline to the film and the audience may get lost in the events of what is happening.

OVERALL IMPROVEMENTSOverall I believe that the one thing I would do in future to make my films better is the smoothness of the editing. For example in my preliminary film the editing was a little ‘jumpy’ and the scenes didn’t flow as well but in my real film opening this aspect was a little better. However I still believe that I could make improvements to make the editing even better. I learned about the opacity of the different scenes and how you can layer the scenes over each other to enable smoother flow between scenes and make the film look even better. Other elements that I would like to improve would be the camera focus as there were a few times in my preliminary film where the shots were out of focus and 1 time in the real film where the camera was slightly out of focus. Therefore I believe that if I were able to perfect these issues, my film should be a lot better quality.