Evaluation 7

Evaluation 7

I have learned that the preliminary was essential to help me create the final project.

This was because the preliminary provided the relevant information for us to plan what would be in the final product and how to achieve it.

Some of the issues encountered in the preliminary that we were able to resolve in the final production were:

• Understanding what camera movements would be involved and recognising representation in scenes which helped us to create the scenes we wanted. For example in the preliminary the group occasionally forgot to film only in landscape (as in the shot below) and we learn't to use a tripod to reduce camera shake.
• The preliminary helped in choosing the correct camera angles to appear in the final film.

• In the preliminary we thought that the low angle shot worked really well and would be an interesting perspective for the audience.

Low angle

• The mid shots were used to show the main character in full view. We changed from a shot of a single character in the preliminary taking that idea and improving on it to include the two main characters to tie into the story plot.    

Mid shots

• We didn't use panning in the preliminary however we decided to use this in the final production as this allowed the actors to stay in shot while showing movement across the scene.

Panning

• We liked the match on action shot of the door opening in the preliminary but wanted to improve on this for the final production. We did this by improving the camera shots and the editing so that so that we got rid of the pause that occurred on the preliminary. The final version was much smoother and helped to establish the plot.  

Match on Action

• We did not use any extreme close-ups in the preliminary but we decided that these would be good to use in the final production as they focused the viewer's attention on important aspects of the shot and added intrigue to the film's plot.
• We used visual effects to enhance the film for example we added an overlay of a digital camera to the shots so that it was obvious that someone was filming the characters. We added a grainy effect so that it looked like amerture filming and created shadow to fit in line with the concept of the film having a mysterious feel about it.

In general the differences between the preliminary task and the final project was that the final project took a lot longer to make and it involved the group heading out and filming scenes and sounds for the production project. In the preliminary task we did not need to go and film we used the internet to get all the information we needed to complete the task. 

Research - One of the useful pieces of information we found during research was about regional identity and the stereotypes that come with it. The project dealt with stereotypes around being a woman and being portrayed as a victim.

Editing - Some struggles that we had was with the editing in which we needed to learn how to use Final Cut Pro which was difficult as it was similar to Adobe After Effects but its tools do very different things. This issue occurred because we were using a mixture of Apple and PCs and the different software that went with them. We managed this problem by researching instructional videos on YouTube of how to use Final Cut Pro, this fixed most of the problems we had.

Filming - A big problem that we had when we started filming was the phones we used had limited memory meaning that we struggled to film all the scenes properly. Too fix this problem we moved/deleted some images on our phones, also we moved the footage that we did off the phones onto a memory stick which we used to store the footage.

Sound - Another problem we experienced was when I tried to move the idents I created from Adobe After Effects to Final Cut Pro this cause the sound to disappear meaning that the cog turning sound had vanished. To fix this issue we got the sound file and placed it directly onto the Final Cut Pro timeline, this allowed us to then be able to hear the sound and move it around as we pleased. I have since discovered that it is necessary to tick 'audio output' also when rendering to avoid this.  

The group - We did not change the group for the preliminary or the final project as we worked well together and worked as a singular unit to complete the tasks. We all contributed to the different elements of the filming and the research. We all agreed to different tasks to complete for the project.

Preliminary v Final Production -  I would say that the final task was better as it was more about practical filming than planning which the preliminary task focused on. Also the preliminary task was more based on research which made it more difficult to complete but helped the making of the final product to go smoothly. Good planning is important as it allows the better evaluation using the proper terminology and allowed problems to be identified at an early stage.  

If I was to improve on this the things I would do differently are to implemented more effects and more camera movements, this would have made the footage more professional and more crisp. I also would have had a bigger cast as it would make the whole production a bit more professional.