QUESTION 7 – LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK (THE CONTINUITY EDITING TASK), WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL

PRODUCT?

Bethan tinker

Preliminary task overlook -

Our preliminary task was very basic and with regret, literally made up on the spot. This made all our shots very rushed and unprepared, along with this we had very little time to prepare the video like choosing specific shots or editing so we showed it with little skill or dedication to the video. After all of this experience with our preliminary task we decided to take our real video for our coursework very seriously when doing our preparation, giving ourselves a lot of time to film all of our shots and also getting extra shots for our video just in case our desired shots did not turn out how we wanted them too.

Improvement of mise-en-sceneI believe that even though our mise-en-scene in our preliminary task was good up to the standard of the basic video we were making, I think we could have emphasised use of more generic movie styles to show of the skills that we already had. In our actual opening we chose to use photo-shop and final cut which made our video look as horror related as possibly. For our preliminary task we did something very simple with average camera skills which created a student teacher like scene. We did not change much considering the actual picture of the prelim task, we just took consideration of different camera angles and shot when doing it. Whereas in my actual opening final cut for my coursework, we focused massively on how we could make it look more scary and appealing to the audience who would want to watch it. By the appearance of all the shots we took, I think we achieved that stereotypical horror look. We did close up shots which created tension in the video, along with long shots. Then we chose to use a range of angles, we used over the shoulder when looking into the main characters demonic research. This was also put in black and white and went in and out of focus. Between all of this there was a very big use of cross cutting, which created an three-way montage between a main character researching, the same character walking to an unknown location and a set of possessed children. I think we kept up all the mise-en-scene for all of them. Even with the locations of the filming. We also added makeup in our final cut to embellish the fact that it was a horror movie. I learnt how to do it through YouTube tutorials but not only this, also makeup research. This was very different to our preliminary task as we did not need any makeup to enhance anything. Through all of my research I learnt that our final product had to represent all the generic horror qualities. We were going to add black eye contact lenses at one stage but due to our small budget we couldn’t.

Development of our camera skills

In our preliminary task we used a small very basic camera to film everything, which muffled the sound a bit and made the image slightly unclear however was appropriate for use when making this video. In this one, we used a more specialised camera which had a much better quality image during filming. This made it look far more professional in our final product. As I’ve said in my previous slide we also used a huge range of different camera angles, eg the low angle ones when filming our character walking through fields and over the shoulder shot when he’s researching. Its good that we have developed our camera skills because we were able to get more interesting shots, and by doing tis we have lured the audience in to watching it as we haven’t given much away. Furthermore in our preliminary task, our camera movement was quite bumpy due to not having the equipment to keep it steady. But however in our final product making we decided to use a tripod so it would make everything a lot steadier when moving it around and tilting.

Improvement of FramingAlthough I believe that our framing was to a decent level in our preliminary task, due to our over the shoulder shots of George talking to Cam we got a full view of what was going on. However I think we have used framing more effectively in our final opening. We took consideration into shots of how much information we should be giving away. I think due to our more precise chosen framing and camera angles, it showed that we have constructed each of our shots well. Our main framing was effectively used when filming scenes Cam was in, because during the opening we did not want to give away his identity till the end. So to make sure we didn’t do this, we took a huge range of shots that looked at different parts of Cam’s body, e.g. his legs walking through a field and the back of him. we never included most of his face in the frame.

Improved sound

In our preliminary task our sound was not going to be of great quality due to the camera we were using, it would be more muffled. However in our final cut we could decide where we wanted sound and what sound we could actually use. So in our final cut we decide not to use any dialect, instead we used audio that we found on the internet which basically came across as quite eerie music. This was better quality sound, as in some of our scenes the music may have been waffled due to environmental causes. I think however our scary background music highlighted the genre and improved the quality of the video. Due to software that we used, we could also decide when we wanted the music to fade out/in or if we wanted another sound track on the top and much more. Originally in our rough cut opening, we had the sound of a music box also edited into our video, however due to feedback we decided to remove it. From our audience research, we realised that this was a good move to add in our own soundtrack as it emphasised the genre more.

Variety of TransitionsIn our preliminary task, we did not have any transition, apart from if you count match-on-action when George opened a door to get into another room but that was more of a cut. However in our final product we used a lot of transitions to go from scene to scene in our opening. We used fading in and out on different shots, including Cam and the possessed children. There is a high use of this transition, during looking closely as research we use the Ken Burns effect to look at more than one bit. Then when we are doing our titles, we use the transition swipe. By doing all these transitions in our videos we managed to created suspense within our video.

Improved title credits We did not use title credits within our preliminary task so this was very different to use using them in our final cut. We had a very specific font we wanted to use which matched the colour scheme and also fit in with the genre of our opening. They had a black background behind them with white font and this caused suspense into the build up of the next scene. In our final title credit which said ‘The Mark’, we used the anti Christ symbol to represent the T at the beginning which improved our mise-en-scene. Not only this but by adding credits and titles we made the film look a lot more professional and well done, whereas our preliminary task did not look at skilled.