Question 7 Evaluation

Our preliminary task was a continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with both characters exchanging a few lines of dialogue. The task involved the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot reverse shot. Our main task involved the titles and the opening 2 minutes of a film.

The planning of our preliminary task was not ideal. Firstly, we made the dialogue up as we went long therefore it was difficult to portray the storyline we was trying to get across to the audience whereas in our full product, we used Celtx to write a script beforehand so we knew exactly what we was doing. This also allowed our filming to be less time consuming.

For our preliminary task we did not research into similar genres or films therefore we struggled to relate our task. Because of this, we made sure we researched our genre (Psychological Horror) thoroughly and also researched similar characters. This ensured we picked the correct location and time to film. For our preliminary task we filmed in a classroom at college in the middle of the day whereas for our final product we filmed at an alleyway, on a street and inside a house. We filmed all these settings at night in an alleyway, house and on the street. This allowed our location to relate to our genre. Researching characters also helped each character dress and behave in a way that portrayed the genre to the audience. For example the intruder dressed in black and acted suspiciously creating tension and fear for the characters and the audience. In our preliminary task the characters dress code did not portray the personality or the mood of the characters.


In our final product we have been able to use more mise en scene than in our preliminary task. In our preliminary task we used very basic props such as a table whereas in our final product we have used mobile phones, tv and earphones which has allowed our film to appeal to a younger audience (16-19). We have also used weapons such as a knife to make sure our film relates to the genre of psychological horror. Since our preliminary task we have also learnt about lighting. By adjusting lighting in our end product, we were able to go from a normal, friendly atmosphere to a tension, frightful one which reflects the genre of our film.

Also, due to a lack of knowledge on cinematography and editing we struggled to create a shot list that had a varied amount of shots such as a tracking shot and a focus pull and portray editing techniques such as graphic match and jump cuts therefore in our preliminary task we were only able to perform basic shots such as over the shoulder shot, angle shots and use basic editing techniques such as match on action and shot reverse shot. However our knowledge of editing has also improved drastically since our preliminary investigation. We have learnt by adjusting the pace of the film, we can affect the tension reflected to the audience, for example in our final product we used fast pace editing (1min 42 secs) whereas in the preliminary investigation we used one pace throughout. We have also learnt how to perfectly perform techniques such as a match on action (2mins 5secs), shot reverse shot (0.42 secs), graphic match (2mins 8secs) jump cuts (0.58 secs) and elliptical editing (1 min 47 secs) which ensured our film was projected at a high standard.