Evaluation Question Seven - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the main task?

Research and Planning

When creating my prelim task all I did was to make sure to follow the rule of thirds when filming and to overlap footage to allow editing to be easier. The conversation which takes place was completely improvised so the quality appears poor not only because of that, but because I paid little to no attention to cinematography, mise-en-scene, diegetic sound or lighting.

As I developed understanding of the conventions of real media products through my research and planning it became apparent to me the complexity that is involved when creating a moving image product. Not because the production itself is complicated but because it has to be well planned and every detail needs to be specific and to a high standard in order to achieve a professional looking final product.
My product was well planned in the sense that I knew exactly how I wanted everything to be and had it all planned to the minor detail but my time management was not what it could have been. Some sections of my product had to be altered completely from the initial idea due to lack of time.
I made sure that I paid close attention to each detail to ensure fluent edits in my final product and used a range of camera angles so that there was a wide variety for the audience.

Construction

The location of my film was difficult when shooting because I wanted to make the areas seen in the product seem bigger than it is in reality, to do this I purposely angled each shot so that it looks as though my actor was travelling through different areas as oppose to the small circle he was really walking in. Some camera movements appear more shakey than they should be, this is true because a still shot might have looked more professional but the constantly shakey edges of the screen ensure the audience isn't calm whilst watching the film. It was intentional to fit with the genre of my final product.

All diegetic sound in my product was kept, similar to my prelim task although I did add non-diegetic music for the entirety of the sequence, this was to captivate the audience more and the diegetic sound was left in completely so that it adds an aspect of realism to the product.

The two screenshots above display my final product (first) and my prelim task (second). One immediate observation when comparing the two is that the camera angle chosen for my prelim is simple, the one used in my final product is not. This shows that I became more confident with my skills when using a camera whilst creating my final product, using what I learnt from my prelim.

I did not choose actors for my prelim task, there are no genuine reason why it is those two people specifically in the sequence. For my actual moving image product I chose a character that may seem unusual to some people, as though he is up to something mysterious that no one can figure out. I also paid slight attention to mise-en-scene in my final product, the character is wearing a hoody so the audience gets a feeling as though he must have caused some sort of trouble, it's not raining and his hood is up. He didn't want people to see his face.

The lighting was not taken into account until I had to re-shoot part of my final product to improve it from the rough cut. I realised that it could be noticable since it was shot entirely outside, I scheldualed shooting on multiple days untill the weather matched what was in my original footage so the editing would be fluent.