There is a huge difference between our prelim and our main task. Looking at different Thrillers and representations of social groups in TV-dramas helped me to improve my skills in the key areas Planning and Research, Mise-en-Scene, Camera and Editing and to have a satisfactory result.
Planning and Research
A huge difference between the development of the prelim and the main task was the time we invested into the planning and of the two projects. We had 60 min to plan and shoot our prelim. We spent about 15 weeks planning our thriller. This vast distinction was caused by the lack of starting material we got from our teachers. A lot the planning for the prelim was already done. So, for an example the storyboard we used was already done for us. In the progress of developing our main task I not only learned how to right dialogue for our thriller, but I also learned how to plan every single shot of our thriller and write them into a storyboard and a shot of shot list.
Furthermore we had more than a sufficient amount of time to do a research into thrillers, that are similar to our's, as well as events, that actually happened. This helped to understand the way we wanted our thriller be and latter to shoot and edit the thriller as we learned how a thriller has to look like. Because we didn't have this research with our prelim, we didn't really know how a thriller has to look like to make it a thriller.
Mise-en-Scene
As I already mentioned did we invest a much bigger amount of time into our main task than into our prelim task. This difference caused a huge distinction between the use and the effect of Mise-En-Scene.
The biggest difference of Mise-En-Scene was the setting. While we just shot our prelim in one of our class rooms, we did a big research on different kitchens in films and in real life and learned how to use setting to affect the audience and its response on our main thriller. Another differential between my prelim and main task are the actors. In our another group member and I just played the roles. Both of us were not casted for the role and had no acting experience in front of a camera before that. For our main task we thought about who of the actors, that were available, would suit the role best and how much acting experience they already had. So we used casted actors in our main task, which didn't just suit the role and act well, but also looked good in front of the camera and attracted our target audience. Through this I learned how difficult it can be to choose an actor if you don't agree with your partner's favourite and how you can still come to a result that everyone is happy with. As in the similar way to the setting and the actors I learned how to use props, costume and professional lighting to create effect and meaning. For our prelim task we just used room lighting, no props and our own clothes we wore that day that day. For our main task we had a 2-point-lighting a huge range of different kitchen props and composed costumes, that matched with the setting in the background and the actor.
Camera
Over the past two terms I learned a lot about the use and effects of cameras and different shots. We used a Sony NX5 camera for both, prelim and main task. However the way we used the camera has improved tremendously. For our prelim we just used basic and quite boring shots, such as Wide-Shots, Mid-Shots and Close-ups , which didn't really create the feeling of suspense and tension we wanted to create. Although the shots in our main task are still quite simple, because we wanted to present the show as a self-made one, we still had a much bigger range of different shots, such as mid-close-ups, close-ups, extreme close-ups and many more variations of the basic shots. This lack of creativity in our prelim was not just caused by our poor camera skills at this time, we were also limited in our shots through the storyboard that had been already made for us. In our main task we used our own storyboard and were able to add shots at the shooting day if we wanted to. So, for an example, we made a shot of our actor biting into a carrot. The shot wasn't in our storyboard and had nothing to do with the storyline in our thriller. However it created humour and so we decided to put it into our final product.
Furthermore, in contrast to our prelim, we didn't just want to film the events happening like we did in our prelim. We also wanted to make it look good. In Because we didn't have extra lenses to give the film a cinematic depth, we used different placements of objects and protagonists to create both, a variety of different shots and a feeling of watching a real film. Because we didn't see the set and all the props before the shooting day, a lot of the cutaways we used were improvised. This helped me to learn how to extemporize react with the camera very quickly and how to make decisions under the pressure of the time, that we had to shoot the whole thriller in. The time we had for the prelim was much shorter. However the amount of actions and the variety of shots we used to capture these actions was much smaller. Therefore we weren't under a big time pressure.
Editing
The huge difference between the ways we have edited our prelim and main task already starts with the huge distinction we have organized our shots. While we were just using a 'crush' and a 'log' bin for our prelim, we developed a whole system of different bins for our main task. This vast differential was cause by the different length of footage we had for the to task. While we had about 30 shots with a total length of about 15 min in our prelim task, the 114 shots we produced for our main task had a length of almost 2 hours.
This massive distinction between these two tasks was caused by the difference of length the tasks were supposed to have (prelim 30 sec and main 2/3 min).
Another huge difference between the tasks is the accuracy of cuts we did. At the beginning of the year we had no idea how to actually do good and fluent cuts. Over the past year we learned how to properly edit a thriller. In our main tasks we used editing conventions of real media products such as match-on-action and others. This made the thriller look much more professional and fluent. In strong contrast with the prelim shot, which looks messy and amateurish.
Furthermore we the editing process of our main task had three parts.
Organizing and Discarding the shots, which was a huge step, the picture cut including cutting the length down and finally the sound cut. The sound cut made the biggest difference between the two tasks as it was the only thing we didn't do in our prelim. Although the other steps we not that hugely developed in our prelim, we still organized and cut our thriller.
We didn't have much extra sound in our thriller. However we needed to cut the sound to create a fluent image of cuts. Moreover we added sound effects of knife stabbing to reinforce the violence in our thriller and used a dark and sinister non-diegetic background music to create a serious atmosphere.
Furthermore, in contrast to our prelim, we didn't just want to film the events happening like we did in our prelim. We also wanted to make it look good. In Because we didn't have extra lenses to give the film a cinematic depth, we used different placements of objects and protagonists to create both, a variety of different shots and a feeling of watching a real film. Because we didn't see the set and all the props before the shooting day, a lot of the cutaways we used were improvised. This helped me to learn how to extemporize react with the camera very quickly and how to make decisions under the pressure of the time, that we had to shoot the whole thriller in. The time we had for the prelim was much shorter. However the amount of actions and the variety of shots we used to capture these actions was much smaller. Therefore we weren't under a big time pressure. Editing
The huge difference between the ways we have edited our prelim and main task already starts with the huge distinction we have organized our shots. While we were just using a 'crush' and a 'log' bin for our prelim, we developed a whole system of different bins for our main task. This vast differential was cause by the different length of footage we had for the to task. While we had about 30 shots with a total length of about 15 min in our prelim task, the 114 shots we produced for our main task had a length of almost 2 hours.
This massive distinction between these two tasks was caused by the difference of length the tasks were supposed to have (prelim 30 sec and main 2/3 min).
Another huge difference between the tasks is the accuracy of cuts we did. At the beginning of the year we had no idea how to actually do good and fluent cuts. Over the past year we learned how to properly edit a thriller. In our main tasks we used editing conventions of real media products such as match-on-action and others. This made the thriller look much more professional and fluent. In strong contrast with the prelim shot, which looks messy and amateurish.
Furthermore we the editing process of our main task had three parts.
Organizing and Discarding the shots, which was a huge step, the picture cut including cutting the length down and finally the sound cut. The sound cut made the biggest difference between the two tasks as it was the only thing we didn't do in our prelim. Although the other steps we not that hugely developed in our prelim, we still organized and cut our thriller.
We didn't have much extra sound in our thriller. However we needed to cut the sound to create a fluent image of cuts. Moreover we added sound effects of knife stabbing to reinforce the violence in our thriller and used a dark and sinister non-diegetic background music to create a serious atmosphere.
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