Evaluation Question 7...

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

Here I have inserted both my preliminary task, and my full opening sequence.

By having the two clips side by side, you can easily see the difference between the two.  One thing I learnt from my preliminary task is that we need to check locations very carefully, mainly to avoid distracting things in the background. For example, at 0:06 in the preliminary task, a computer screen is in shot, displaying a desktop background of Stone Henge. It was only when watching the footage during editing did we notice how eye catching that screen is. If we noticed it, then any audience member is bound to notice it and be distracted from the action in the clip.  Another occurance of this is at 0:15 where a rucksack can be seen on the floor behind the girl in the green coat. When the camera next cuts back to this girl at 0:20, the bag is no longer in shot, making it very obvious that the camera was moved between shots. This is emphasised by the fact that the girl in the purple shirt is more visible in the second shot.  We did take this very much into account during the filming of our final product, but during this evaluation I noticed one slight incident of a changing background between shots. between 1:14 and 1:18 on our final product, in the lower right hand side of the screen, a person can be seen entering the building through a gap in the staircase. Although it is hardly noticeable unless you pay close attention, it is still a very school boy error that the cinematographer should have been aware of.  At 0:16 in our main task, the background shows fire extinguishers and emergency signs. In this case, that was intentionally placed in the background as a subliminal message. Fire extinguishers and evacuations are things often linked with danger. By placing them slightly in view as we look at the female character, it hints that there may in fact be something dangerous about her that we should be aware of.  Another thing learnt from the preliminary task is the importance of match-on-action shots to make the clip easy for the audience to follow. This can be seen between 0:03 and 0:06 in the preliminary task, where we see the girl in the green coat walk TOWARDS a door in the first shot, and in the next shot we see her walking THROUGH a door. This simple trick means that the audience is aware that this is the same door at the same time. You can see this influence in our main task between 1:10 and 1:19. In the first shot, from a high angled shot we see a girl walking up a flight of stairs looking at the ground. In the next shot, we see what appears to  be a point of view shot, which shows the same walking movement at the same place the girl had been walking. This shows to the audience that the point of view we are seeing is that of the girl on the staircase.  The dialogue in the preliminary task had not been formally scripted, but we had discussed what would be said beforehand. The main issue with this was that editing was difficult as the actors said different variations of their lines each time- meaning that sometimes the conversation might not make sense when edited together.  There was no dialogue included in our main task as we didn't feel it was necessary, but had it been used, as producer I would have ensured lines were formally planned and scripted to make sure they made perfect sense in the final edit.  One of the main influences that I took from the preliminary task was that we should use as few straight cuts as possible. I feel that a plain simple cut used for EVERY transition makes the clip dull to watch, and also gives it an amateur feel.  In some cases rapid cuts between clips can be effective, and they are often used to show tension.  I can see hints of this within our final product, especially between 0:12 and 0:16, where we used jump cuts to show rapid movement. The movement expressed is actually so fast that it appears unnatural, which helps to build the ambient theme of our clip, which is in the horror genre. 
Overall, I think I gained a lot of knowledge from creating the preliminary task, and by applying this to my final product, I feel my opening sequence is very effective and very enjoyable to watch.