Evaluation question 7: Looking back at the Preliminary task, what do you think you have learned in the process from it?

While progressing from the Preliminary task to our Final Film, there were many improvements and things learned from our preliminary film to aid in the success of our final cut. These improvements range from various different factors which relate to the effectiveness of a media text. Examples of improvements and edits fall under a variety of fields, these include;

- Cinematography
- Sound
- Location
- Execution of shots
- Mise en Scene
- Editing

Camera work

From the Preliminary task, I have learned how to more effectively use the camera to enhance the dynamics of a media text. Examples of this is the use of a high angle shot to show who is the oppressed in a sequence in our final cut whereas in our preliminary exercise we did not consider camera work and cinematography to represent certain things within the media.

Furthermore, I have learned from our preliminary task, how to use a wider range of shots in order to make the media text more engaging for the audience. In our preliminary task, most of the shots where simple shot reverse shots and the duration of each shot was potentially longer than it needed to be. I have learned that through a quicker pace of editing with a wider variety of shots, especially in relation to the thriller genre, it works effectively as the audience constantly have to work in order to keep up with the action and are therefore engaged and connected to the media product to a greater extent.

Location

While progressing from our preliminary task to our final cut, I have established that a strong use of multiple locations when filming can be effective as it allows the audience to uncover these different places while they watch the film which intrigues them as they constantly want to find out what the next location will be. Also, overwhelming and bold locations are effective as it provides the "wow" factor for the audience and a good location can force them to engage with the action on screen more thoroughly. While restricted to one environment in the media text, the audience have the capacity to become tiresome and become less focused on the action.

As you can see from the screen grabs above, we restricted ourselves to one location in our preliminary task that was not that powerful when considering the conformities of the thriller genre. However, in our final cut, we used large and powerful urban settings for some of our locations and therefore, our final media product would have a greater effect and hold on our audience overall.

Storyline

I learned from my preliminary task that storyline within the thriller genre can be really effective in sustaining an audiences' attention. In our preliminary task, our storyline was very week and not particularly engaging; and we learned how this could have a huge effect on our audience in the sense that if our storyline was not strong then it does not give them a reason to continue watch our media product. Based on this, we made sure to enhance the storyline when creating our final thriller in order to capture our audience.

There were more characters within our final piece and our product as a whole was much longer than our preliminary task which meant we could develop these characters to a greater extent which made our product as a whole a step up from our preliminary task.

Mise en scene

I also learned from my preliminary task that the mise en scene has a great effect on the quality of a media product. Progressing from this, we made sure that in our final thriller we had a strong mise en scene which would get the audience questioning different things about the content of our product and to further be enthralled by the media text within it. A noticeable difference between our preliminary and our Final product in relation to the mise en scene is costume. In our preliminary, we did not value or consider the effectiveness of costume and consequently our worked lacked taste and impact where there wasn't a clear distinction between our characters through factors such as; status, class and power.

 However, in our final thriller opening, we utilised costume where the oppressed character was wearing standard clothing whereas the character with authority was wearing a smart suit which suggests he has a higher status then the casually dressed character and he obtains more power. This is a result of us feeding the stereotypes of society.

Furthermore in relation to the mise en scene advancing from our preliminary task to the final edit, there were are more diverse range of graphics on screen which was more impacting then the ones within our preliminary task. This shows that I learned that impacting sequences and pictures within the media text are important in capturing our audience, this is especially in relation to thriller genre. Examples of the contrast between the extent of the graphics within our preliminary task and our final cut can be seen below:










Editing

In progression from the preliminary task to the Final thriller, I have learnt a huge amount about editing. I played an instrumental part in the editing of our film and thus gained a variety of skills in relation to editing. First and foremost, I learnt how to effectively use final cut express in order to edit our media product which I could not do when editing our preliminary task as we used more simplistic editing software such as the editing software found on the windows set up. Based on this, in transition from our preliminary task to our final thriller, the editing within our media product improved to a much more enhanced standard.

                 





What we also took into account was the speed and style of editing within our final edit to improve its quality in comparison to our preliminary task. In our preliminary task, the speed of the editing is quite gradual and repetitive which makes the text lack taste and effect as mentioned before. Furthermore, there are no advanced transitions in our preliminary task which alter from a straight cut. This limits the effectiveness of our preliminary task as the audience are not impacted to the extent they would be if the speed and style of the editing was varied.

However, in our Final cut, the speed of our editing was varied and on many occasions unorthodox. This allows the audience to not become tiresome of the long sequences without an edit. This is very relevant in association to the thriller genre where there is a lot of fast paced action and the speed of editing is the make or break in determining how the action within the film will impact its audience. Furthermore, in our Final Cut, we stylised the editing in various different ways using advanced editing techniques such as; dissolves, cross fades and fade ins/outs. This makes the overall look of the media text more appealing for the audience as these styles give indication to many different things such as time passing. This shows that I have learnt a significant amount about editing in the progression from my preliminary task to my final thriller.

 

Sound

I have learned a great deal about sound progressing from our preliminary task to our final cut based on the fact that in our preliminary task, there was no non-diegetic sound which absolutely limits the impact that our media text has on our audience. Progressing from our preliminary task, our Final Cut entertained a strong mix of both diegetic and non diegetic sound. Both the sound effects we used in correlation with our non-diegetic music aided the impact that our media text had on our audience. We were able to identify what our preliminary task lacked in relation to sound and learned from this through placing a wide variety of sounds within our media text.