TASK 7 WHAT HAVE I LEARNT FROM PRELIM TO MAIN TASK

In terms of our progress we learnt a lot about camera, editing, sound and miss-en-scene in our thriller but less in our prelim.

Mise -en-scene
In our prelim we filmed in the editing suite and we had no set other than what was already in the room and the only props we had were the two peoples phones. They had a brief conversation we filmed and very little thought went in to the construction of this.
In our thriller we spent a long time trying to work out how to recreate a presidential bunker. We made sure we had the American flag to make it look more authentic as well as maps over the wall and a projector projecting what looks like missiles on to the wall. This helps create a realistic look for our film as well as the underground bunker that we recreated through painting the walls a grey metallic colour. We also made sure that our characters were wearing the right clothes that looked believable as opposed to our prelim where the characters wore what they wanted. In order to create the right effect for our main antagonists death we put toothpaste in his mouth that he slowly spat out. This was meant to look like a cyanide tablet that he had just eaten as he had committed suicide.

Sound
In our prelim we only used the sound of the actors conversation and very little thought went into creating meaning from those sounds. We also increased the sound of the actors speaking as they talked too quietly. This was because our prelim was dramatic and the prelim was based around the conversation. In contrast in our thriller had conversation but also gun shots. Our thriller was mostly involved action. This was the first time we got to add non-diegetic sound using editing.

Camera
In our prelim we mostly used wide shots and 180 degree rule. We also did tracking shots of the actors feet walking. We did these type of shots because it was a dramatic thriller and these shots would increase this effect. However our thriller was better shot because we improved on using the camera. In our thriller we mostly used extreme close ups, close ups and wide shots. Extreme close ups would make moments more tense and wide shots are good for action scenes.

Editing
For the editing for our prelim and thriller we used continuity editing. This is a common editing technique used in a lot of Hollywood films to create a believable world. Continuity editing is crucial for thrillers to enable the audience to believe in the characters and events and to be gripped to the film. This form of editing can also be called invisible editing, because it should be invisible, at no point in the film should the focus be drawn to the editing. This type of editing isn't very expressive, for example jump cuts are not commonly used as this breaks the flow of the believable world. For our editing for our prelim we did shot reverse shot to show the characters and conversation are linked with each other. Our editing also created perspective for each of the characters to the audience. The president had most screen time in our thriller which showed that he had the lead role and that the audience could see from his perspective.