The document compares a preliminary film project to a subsequent thriller film project. For the thriller, the filmmakers had more creative control over elements like storyboarding, locations, characters, sound design, and editing. They utilized more advanced camera techniques, added visual effects, and spent more time overall to improve production quality for the thriller compared to the preliminary project.
2. In the prelim, the camerawork was done well as it met the
requirements of our storyboard. The prelim consisted of a
few angles, that were all still and not handheld either. In
our thriller however we added these handheld shots to put
some movement in our shot.
Our thriller consisted of many shots; handheld; panning;
tracking and stills, whist the prelim was only about 4 static
shots.
In our prelim, the whole thing was shot inside a small
office that didn’t really relate to the plotline or create an
atmosphere of any kind. Our thriller however had many
locations that followed one after another to show the
progression of the killer moving throughout the school.
The different camera angles and techniques used made
each scene different from the other whilst still keeping the
action and terror intense.
3. Mise En Scene played a much bigger and more impactful part in our
thriller because was able to set the scene how we wanted to present it.
In the preliminary task, there were no props, costumes etc, to identify
the characters or show relevance and create a context for the scene.
The prelim was shot only in a small office room, which was quite bland
and irrelevant to what was happening in the scene. In our thriller, we
made use of the whole school, to show how the killer went round a
school building, killing everywhere till he reached his final point. A high
school massacre would only be appropriate if it was shot in a school.
In the preliminary, our actors were normal people we used, put into a
situation where they just recite lines and not be able to put an emotion
into a character. In the thriller our actors were more believable as they
had purpose and an actual roll to fill in the scenes. Each actor knew what
they had to act with the context that went with it, meaning they could
relate more to the audience.
The Mise En Scene was much more through and useful in our thriller to
help build the scene, create an atmosphere and keep tension high
throughout. The progression we created with the killer moving around a
school left the audience what would happen next.
4. In the prelim, all the sounds were diegetic. However in our
thriller, we made heavy use of the sound, primarily through
the use of binary oppositions. We inserted sound effects such
as gunshots and screaming, which are meant to be diegetic in
the film world.
In our preliminary task, there was only diegetic dialogue,
which made the scene dull and boring.
The thriller had a variety of sounds, which included the non-
diegetic gunshots and screaming and also the use of
contrapuntal sound with the non-diegetic classical and rock
music.
The sound was better and more effective in our thriller than
prelim as it drastically added to the realism and created that
sense of action and confusion with the binary opposite non-
diegetic musical changes.
5. The editing in the thriller was much better and improved as we spent
many more hours on it. For the prelim, we just cut down the footage into
a few shots, then spliced them all together in After Effects, but the
thriller contained numerous sound and editing techniques to make it
look as professional as possible.
We ended up using 3 programs to edit our thriller, as they both had their
individual pros and cons.
Adobe premier was initially used to upload our footage onto and render
into a much smaller and easier file to edit.
Sony Vegas was then used to cut and trim all the clips, then sort them all
together. Once we were happy with the progression of the film
sequence, we then added the title and credits using Vegas. The non-
diegetic was also added and edited through Vegas.
Finally, Adobe After Effects, the most powerful software out of the three,
was used to add all the visual effects. This included; the gun muzzles
flashes and the lighting which changed with each shot fired. As the
program was easy and intuitive to use, after feedback, I was easily able
to turn off the blood effects I added and re-render in only a couple of
minutes. The most time was spent on After Effects as well, to insure we
were happy with how everything looked.
8. The preliminary task storyboard was already
given to us, meaning we had no input into
the task.
In our thriller however, we came up with the
idea and made our own storyboard. Although
the storyboard before was of our initial idea,
we did change the actual thriller slightly due
to various bits of feedback and what we
thought was best. For example, the whole
basketball scenario to add mystery and a
duck mask instead of clown etc.
9. Although my group for the prelim and thriller
was different, I think the teamwork in the thriller
was well organised and productive, as we each
had our own separate area to work on, meaning
everyone contributed in their own way.
We were also able to help each other out if
needed, such as the editing, where I had help at
various points as my friend was able to show me
editing shortcuts and what to do at various
points, such as green screening the muzzle
effects as one example.