Evaluation - Question 8: Improvements Made From Our Preliminary Task (Part One)

Here is our preliminary match cut exercise, which we made just under 2 months ago. The purpose of this task was to practise using the cameras, transferring footage from the SD memory cards to the hard-drives, and begin using Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro. We also exported and uploaded the edited version to the blog.

And here is our final thriller opening:

It doesn't take much technical media knowledge to notice the vast improvements that we made between the two sequences. The most noticeable thing thats very different in the two videos is the length. This is mainly due to the fact that we only spent around 3 hours on the preliminary task, while we have spent around 1 month planning, filming and editing our final sequence.

Planning is also something that is different in the two sequences. In our preliminary task, we had virtually no planning at all, and nearly everything we did was thought up there and then, (aside from the storyline, which we thought of the week before when we did the ‘Jelly Babies’ sequence). This was partly because our group did not really work well together, and we spent quite a lot of time messing around. Since then, our group-work and planning skills have improved drastically, as most of us spent a large amount of time planning our thriller before we started filming. I think evidence of this can be seen in the final product, as I believe it looks almost like a real (low budget) thriller opening, which is also what we heard quite often when collecting audience feedback.

Another thing that many of the audience members mentioned when giving feedback on our final opening was the sound. All those that mentioned it said that they were impressed by how well it fitted with the Mise En Scene and helped build suspense and tension. This is mainly due to the skills I have developed in the past few months using the audio sequencing program Logic, and also Soundtrack Pro, which we used for the sound effects (ambient sounds and the flashback sounds). 

Looking back at our preliminary sequence, I can hear that we just used one long orchestral loop from Soundtrack Pro. I remember that I did not feel fully comfortable using the program back then, and as a result we just used one sound throughout, whereas in the final soundtrack, we used over 20 different sounds and effects (not including the music) as I was more confident using Soundtrack Pro.

Soundtrack Pro 

Some of the SFX used in our final opening

(Continues in Part Two)