Question 9
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? 

Before planning and creating our thriller opening sequence we carried out a preliminary task. 
This was done to allow the media students who are not familiar with the camera equipment and editing software to learn how to use it and allowed the students who have used it before to refresh their memories with all the features. 
There are many features to the software including: Import, export, Cut, Link/unlink,  Pan and Zoom, Text inputting and audio input. 
There is also an effects pane which includes the transitions or brightening of the footage and effects like fade etc. 
Another editing technique which we had to be careful of and learn is the continuity rule, this was mainly carried out when filming.
The continuity rule is making sure each shot follows onto the next one.
An example is, in our preliminary task Molly has her hair tied up at the beginning so we had to make sure through the rest of the clip she has her hair tied up. Failing to do this will produce a bad continuity level.
The video you just watched was our preliminary task; as you can see we haven’t used many skills and the final piece of work is very basic, this is how we improved, by practicing.
      A strength in our preliminary task is the levels of continuity, we followed the continuity rule well, however a weakness which needs to be improved if we re-edit it, is the sound sync with the action, especially  the sound of footsteps and Molly walking, they are not playing at the same time and sound very unrealistic. 

In between our preliminary task and making our final thriller idea, we also did extra ancillary tasks , for example, Sound Project and Test Anxiety. 
The Sound Project was merely to practice using sound to illustrate a point  and know how to add it in and make it sync with the footage and the Test anxiety project was to practice editing on your own but working in a group to film, making sure you all have a go at filming and use a variety of different camera shots. 
Test Anxiety
http://alexhelsby.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/my-editing-of-%e2%80%98test-anxiety%e2%80%99/  < this is a link to my blog, showing the post about Test Anxiety, it shows the video clip and says what shots I used and why during the filming. This shows I understand why different shots are used at different moments and also widens my knowledge for when I came to film our thriller. 

Sound project was our last filming task before actually going out and filming our thriller, as you can see from the video below we as a group had improved from our preliminary task project and used a variety of different shots, varied the editing transitions and effects and used sound more effectively. 

Sound Project
Before planning and working on initial ideas we carried out some primary research. We were able to find out what the good features of a thriller were and what the bad features of a thriller were:
Examples of a good features of a thriller are; establishing enigmas, using the Mise en scene to set a frightening but realistic atmosphere and having a protagonist which creates some sort of drama.
Examples of bad features of a thriller are, unrealistic sounds, an unrealistic storyline and giving away the story too much at the beginning (not having many enigmas to hold a mystery throughout). 
This will enable us to make a popular and highly rated thriller for all. 
When we carried out our research we found out what the most popular thriller genres were and the least popular genres and we then took these results into consideration when deciding which sub-genre to base our own thriller on.
When researching, we also found that although some sub-genres, i.e. action thriller, are more popular, we cannot use them as we do not have a sufficient budget or the resources and facilities to create a thriller of that genre.
In between choosing our final idea and drawing our storyboard we carried out some research on soundtracks. 
In the process of creating our storyboard we first broke down our written out storyline into shots, writing the number of the shot above the writing where each shot cuts, we then drew each shot of how it would look like and how and where each character is framed. 
After completing the drawings on our storyboard we then individually went through each shot writing what is happening in the shot, what sounds are used (Diegetic and non-Diegetic) and the transition of the shot. 
Our storyboard showed a clear outline of our storyline broken down into short clips. This made it easier and quicker when we came to filming as each shot was broken down so we knew what to film and where.

By carrying out the preliminary tasks it allowed us to pick up positive and negative feedbacks which we can use to make a good final product for our thriller. 
The positives which influenced our final product would be the good level of continuity used in films, also the realism and use of sound to set an atmosphere or certain mood needed.
One important thing we did learn and used towards our final product was leaving enough time to complete a task to a good level, including getting feedback in between. 
Our Sound project ended up being quite rushed as we didn’t allow ourselves enough time for feedback and problems which may occur. Learning this meant that when we came to developing and producing our thriller we left ourselves plenty of time to edit the footage, any problems which may occur to be solved, and hand in rough cut to be marked and for us to gain feedback on, to improve for our final cut. 
As I mentioned we did face quite a few problems when editing our footage (footage not exporting, software freezing and taking along time to upload sound) so it was a good that we had left the extra time so these problems could be solved and not affect our final product.