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

I believe that from the preliminary task we have progressed extremely well to create a new and exciting film which consists of a much wider use of techniques and conventions of a thriller. From analysing the preliminary task we could spot the weaknesses of it and transfer the strengths into our final film. Despite the preliminary task being very rough and of low quality, I found the plot and general atmosphere that the film created to be very effective and powerful in portraying all the conventions of the thriller genre. In some ways I believe that we may have resulted in a better final film if we followed more aspects of our preliminary task, for instance, the great use of low key lighting and flickering of the lights effectively built suspence and tension while also adding a touch of horror (keeping the audience on edge and anxious).

     As the preliminary task was to create a film which required three main camera techniques, these being match-on-action, shot/reverse/shot and the 180-degree rule, I believe we chose too simplistic and bland props to use. The idea of using a hand opening a door for match on action seemed a little predictable and boring, while the use of the 180-degree rule was not as effective as we were filming in a small enclosed area. On the other hand, our final film involved new and interesting camera shots; we found that using the same techniques, however with different props, we could achieve a better quality shot with continuity which is essential in a film.

 

     If we were to improve our final film I would recommend using more low key lighting and also developing our plot to include more action. By doing this we could build much more tension, the low key lighting would work acceptionally well in certain scenes of our final film such as the laboratory scene or the opening scene in the counseling room. Despite this I think our film proved to be very successful overall; from looking at fellow pupils' final film I believe we produced an acceptionally well presented film which keeps the audience intrigued and interested to see more.