Looking back at my preliminary task, i see that the progress to my full product is really good and it is clear to see that i have learnt a lot between the creation of my two openings.
When producing my prelim, i hadn't yet done much practical work therefore it was all trial and error and creating shots in the styles that i knew off the top of my head (what i learnt in media, tv drama, earlier in the year). The main thing that helped my group with the production of our prelim was the brief; it set instructions that were easy to follow and still left lee-way for each group to make it their own. Another thing that helped my group was the storyboard, it was a good starting point as it layed out clearly each step that we had to shoot and we later came to see it was a good starting point for all the camera work that we did.
We looked at foley sound before creating our prelim as we later had to incorporate it into our own work.
Whilst sticking to the brief, we decided to a college corridoor and a small interview room as our settings. In the beginning of our prelim it shows how we experimented with various camera shots/angles of the main character walking (using a wheely chair so the camera moved in time with the person walking). We shot the feet/legs from left, right, the back and the front which we later agreed looked really effective and made it more interesting to look at than if it was just one long shot. Another successful part of our prelim was the match cut of the hand touching the door handle before the door is opened, the timing of the shot and the shot itself turned out to be really good. We also stuck to the "character sitting down opposite the other character", this point was where we decided to keep the main characters face out of the shots, this was intentional and was intended to create more mystery. At the same time, we kept in mind the "180 degree rule" which we had just learnt about.
Post production, we added sound and titles using Soundtrack Pro and Final Cut Pro. Our aim was to have a slow background tune aswell as using foley sound to emphasise footsteps and the door closing. The inclusion of this in our prelim made it even more successful and inspired us to use the foley sound in our final product. We added the title in Final Cut Pro, this was also useful for us as it showed us further how to use the program but this time on our own work.
Much of the work on our final product was inspired by our prelim and existing films. We used the same interview room as our main setting, where the killer played her game of chess. Again, we similarly created storyboards to use as a starting point. One of the improvements was the fact that when filming our final product it was less trial and error as we were now used to the software and the hardware that we had to use and had already thought up the shot types, camera angles, lighting, mise en scene and sounds before prior to production.
In our full product, we also focused on the 180 degree rule, which led to a few issues rising with certain shots that didn't fit once we put our work together. It was more challenging to stick to the rule when producing our final cut because we had a lot more atmosphere to create than when making our prelim but the room is very small, especially when filled with 4 people plus equipment,
The lighting in our final product was thought up by the members of my group however it is more than likely that minimal, focused light is already present in some film openings. We kept the mise en scene simple, the chessboard was obviously the main focus and we added a few more shots such as the book and the second character walking, to add some variation.
The main thing we focused on when creating our final cut was having a variety of different shots. As our main prop/focus was the chessboard, it was essential to have different shot types/angles in order to keep the audience as engaged as possible. One shot that we tried really hard to create was a 360 shot of the chessboard. My group and i tried various different ways of making this possible in the hope that if we nailed it, it would look really good. However, with the room being so small, and not the right sort of tripod to create such a shot, it was not possible and we had to replace it with something much simpler.
The last things we focused on again, much like with our prelim, were titles and sound. We put in the titles first, ensuring to hold them for 3 seconds each (which was also a challenge as the software didn't cooperate many times). The main theme to our titles was the type writer effect, we thought it would stand out and look good at the same time as it is simple yet interesting. We also made sure to use white coloured font on darker blackgrounds and vice versa to ensure the titles were as eye catching as possible.
Using Soundtrack Pro, we inputted a background noise of a quiet room with a sort of air conditioning to keep it simple and added foley sound to emphasise movement e.g. tapping nails on the table and slamming down the chess piece on the board, again, similar to our prelim.
Over the course of this project i have picked up many valuable skills. I learnt to use both hardware and software that i wasn't familiar with and had not come across before which i am now confident in using. I also learnt alot about the other side of production such as the widely used 180 degree rule, not to zoom in by hand and other tips on how to make your filming look its best aswell as mastering camera angles, shot types, sound, lighting and mise en scene.
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