AS Media Question-Question 7

Looking back on your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the product?

Preliminary Task


Final Media Product

Compared to our preliminary task our finished product, the thriller opening, was an improvement. In the preliminary task our use of sound was not very good as there was parts with dramatic changes in sound which were noticeable when we watched it back. The microphone we used in the preliminary task was not very good as it had to be placed  close by the source of sound to pick it up clearly. For the final product we used a boom pole microphone which picked up sound effectively and clearly. In the preliminary task we only used diegetic sound whilst in the final product, our thriller opening, we used both diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The use of non diegetic sound helped  add to the action scenes by making them more dramatic.

Preliminary microphone                                                   Final product microphone

                     

The use of editing is also better in our final product as the cuts run more smoothly and so does the transactions between each cut. Camera techniques have also improved over the course of time as we have used more in our final product. However the camera was a lot steadier in the preliminary task as it was mostly in a fixed position, our final product has some action scenes where we had to move the camera a lot to capture the scenes in an interesting way. The continuity of the editing is quite random as we filmed over the duration of five days. However this was appropriate for our film as we had one of the characters Rupert having visions of the other character Angela which are all meant to be at different times in different places. The 180 degree rule was not broken during filming. We had learnt how to use different continuity editing techniques during the preliminary task such as the eye-line match and match on action but they were not used in our final product.

The lighting in the the final product is better as we used three stage lights which we could move around or turn off and on to get the type of lighting we wanted. Natural lighting was used in our preliminary task which was uncontrollable. 

Mise-en-scene was more thought about in our final product as we did not consider it much in our preliminary task. Our props were well suited to our storyline and worked quite successfully. 

Overall, the preliminary task has helped me to use equipment more effectively in order to produce a more successful product.