Q.7 LOOKING BACK TO YOUR PRELIMINARY

TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL THAT YOU HAVE

LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT

TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

By Nikitha Manthena

PLANNING STAGEThere wasn’t much planning during the preliminary task, we just created

a story line, which wasn’t too hard as it was an argument that had happened between the two characters in real life. We then visualised what we wanted it to look like and had a list of camera shots given to us by our teacher to include in the task. So we made a quick storyboard according to the instructions given which was to “create an opening sequence to any movie in the thriller genre, it should consist of someone walking into the room, sitting across the room from someone and exchanging dialogue; it should also last for roughly 2 minutes.” Our lack of planning and communication during the preliminary task caused us problems as the 180 degree rule didn’t follow the rule and the editing was also bad because we overlapped dialogue and you can see extra bits that were wrong and needed to be cut out. However this helped us when planning for the main task as we knew that we lacked communication and detailed planning, so we made sure we spoke thoroughly about everything and planned everything. For example what shot we will be using, where we will be using it, what scene, what props we will be using, whether it will be on a tripod or not, who will be controlling the camera and what day and date we will be doing it. This helped us as it made a huge improvement because we all knew what we needed to do and we knew how to do it as we learnt from our mistakes from the preliminary task.

HAS YOUR USE OF SPECIFIC SHOTS IMPROVED?

Yes, our use of specific shots have improved. When we were doing our preliminary task, we did the 180 degree rule – over the shoulder – shot reverse shot wrong because the camera went from Alessia’s left shoulder to Charlotte’s right shoulder when it should have been Alessia’s right to Charlotte’s right so it wouldn’t confuse the audience. Therefore we learnt from our mistakes and did it correctly the first time when filming for the main task, which was beneficial as it saved us time from redoing it if I was wrong as we didn’t have much time to make mistakes.

DO YOU FEEL MORE CONFIDENT WITH THE EQUIPMENT?Yes, we do feel more confident with the

equipment as we have had a go using the camera and tripod when recreating stills, the preliminary task which made us more confident using it when filming our opening scene. This helped us a lot as we didn’t need to spend time figuring out how to use it and what button to press because we have used it before, so we just got straight onto work which saved us even more time. It took some stress off as we has one less thing to worry about as the camera is the most important thing we needed.

HOW SUCCESSFUL DO YOU FEEL YOUR END PRODUCT IS AS FULFILLING THE TASK?

I feel that our end product was quite successful as we had plenty of experience in how to do the shots, how to work the camera and how to put things together. I feel that we did the best we could in the time we had and that everyone in our group put 110% into it to make this work. I think this task was very successful in the end as the camera, editing and planning all helped the film look good. When you first see it, it isn’t supposed to look like a thriller, the whole point is to confuse the audience and make them wonder why this is a thriller because we feed on their curiosity and then they see the shooting and the blood, the curiosity then turns into fear and mystery. We achieved those emotions as those were the feelings our audience felt when we played the final version to them. Hence overall, I believe our end product is successful due to the fact that it did what we wanted it to do.