Task 7 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?When we were preparing for our preliminary task we worked with only a very simple storyboard which was drawn up in the space of about a minute. This compared to our thriller was extremely simple as with our thriller we spent numerous lessons planning the title sequence, what would happen, how our credits would appear and how we would incorporate the music. This took roughly a week. In terms of filming the two tasks, they were once again extremely different as we took roughly 50 seconds of footage for it which was then converted down to 13 seconds.

For the Thriller on the other hand we took roughly 40 minutes of footage and converted it down to about 2 minutes.This meant that the editing process was significantly protracted for the thriller and took us around six to complete as opposed to the preliminary task which took us around a week to complete. Not only this but the complexity of the shots we took during the thriller were far more advanced than the preliminary. For example the preliminary task only consisted of a few closeups and wide shots, the thriller on the other hand had many different types of POV shots, cross cutting, high angle and low angle shots and establishing shots. There is also one scene in which Dan (the actor) is seen climbing a bank and appears to emerge on top of the bank in the same place. We actually filmed this with Dan climbing a bank in one place and emerging in a totally different place all together. This of the two shots was down to editing and is not something we as a team would have been able to comprehend when filming the prelim task.With the Thriller we had to use a viariety of new technologies to really push the thriller past the simpliIn terms of sound the group has come along way as with the prelim task we didnt use any sound whatsoever as that would have been too difficult for us back then, not only this but it would have added too much time on to the limited amount we had to create the task.

With the thriller however we used tracks from soundtrack pro which we then edited in to the thriller. The music which we then edited in gave the thriller a distinct feeling to it and really helped amplify the tension and give it an entirely new perspective. We as a team discovered that a film is never completed until the sound has been used effectively.With the Thriller we had to use a variety of new technologies to really push the thriller past the simplicity of the prelim task. An example of this is after effects. Since our Thriller revolves around a young man being stabbed and stalked by himself, we had to find a way to somehow display the sam person on the screen as if they were in two seperate bodies. This was most pressing at the end when Dan comes face to face with himself as before we could simply film dan with a hoody walking menacingly, and then dan without a hoody covered in blood running away.

This gave it the illusion that dan was chasing himself.At the end however when they are both meant to be on screen at the same time, we had to use after effects to merge the image of the shots of dan by themself together. We did this by creating a mask by which we drew a virtual line between the two shots of dan in the same frame. This then allowed us to dump them into the same screen. The only real difficulty we had with this was that when dan is about to stab himself, he puts his leg on to the bench were the good version of dan is sitting. This created a bit of a blur as it looked like bad dan's leg dissolved into good dan's leg. This was cleaned up however by darkening the image and creating a line to divide the leg from the other leg. The finished product looked suprisingly realistic.

This is the preliminary task talked about.