Task 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task, I can confidently say that I have developed my knowledge and understanding in the creation of a media product - in all aspects: planning, filmmaking, use of camera, sound and post production.

Obviously since this was a more important task in comparison to the preliminary task, we had to put in much more time and effort in the planning of 'Askew'. We weren't given storyboards, dialogues or any other details for that matter, we were simply told about the basic requirements: an opening sequence for a thriller film of up to two minutes. We had to do our own research to see what thriller opening sequences are like, so that we would have a basic idea of what the final product should seem like. We also had several options within the thriller genre to choose from; such as horror, narrative, thematic, etc. and after we had looked at all these different areas, we opted for a thematic opening sequence. In terms of arrangements, we also had to go more in depth. We got to choose our own shoot locations and so we also had to arrange the required props, actors, design a set, plan all the shots, etc. - something we hadn't done in our prelim task.

 In terms of film-making, again, more time, planning and thinking was required to be put in so that our sequence would have to visual intentions we wanted it to have. We chose to make the sequence a thematic one, therefore we had to focus on details, especially in terms of mise-en-scene. Every little thing that would be seen, or not seen, adds to a specific meaning, or feeling that would affect the audiences' interpretation upon the viewing of the final product. Details such as the mouse, was one of the shots we spent most of our times arranging. One thing I learnt was that it is important for the shot to be logistically possible and realistic so that the shot works out. We suffered in the case of the mouse, since the shot we had in mind didn't work out due to technical issues that we hadn't kept in mind (the camera could not zoom in beyond a certain point). Due to this, we had to change the shot on the day, and luckily, with the aid of post-production, we managed to make the shot look good in the final product.

Use of camera was another aspect in which we could spend lots of time on, especially since we had access to better equipment such as the genie, tracks, etc. We learned how to do focus pulls during a tracking shot, which took quite a long time to get right.

We also focused on details while framing the shot, in oder to bring about the correct intentions. This required us to place the objects in terms of rule of thirds in addition to making sure it was well lit. 

One of the shots that look us a long time to finally get right was the fruit bowl shots. Not only was it just a tracking shot, it also included a focus pull in between. We made small marks on the camera using a special kind of chalk in order to mark the positions of the focus ring at which the focus pull had to be made. The main challenged we faced was that the shot wasn't smooth - we assume this was due to some mishap of the wheels on the tripod which made the shot jerky. Another challenge was to place all the rotten fruit in the exact same position as the fresh fruit in order for the shot to work in terms of continuity. The rotten fruits were much smaller in size and so arranging them took us some time to master - we also had to add in pieces of tissue to make the fruit bowl look right.

In terms of sound, we had to tackle a completely different skill since we used dialogue that was recorded from the build-in microphone of the camera in our prelim task and decided to compose a soundtrack based on the events of the sequence for 'Askew'. We had to learn how to use Sound Track Pro, which is a great software for sound composing and mixing. We layered the voiceovers (that we recorded along in the recording studio) with ambient music and heartbeat sounds that were in the Sound Track Pro sound beds. 

Our sequence heavily depended on Adobe After Effects, which is quite an overwhelming yet extremely powerful software for adding the special effects to any video. It works in a very similar way to Adobe Photoshop, the only difference is that it is for motion instead of pictures.
We had used Final Cut before in our prelim task, however we were completely alien to After Effects. After spending our time and patience on it, we got the hang of it and played around to see what we could add to our sequence. We added in smoke, the journal entries that we had handwritten, different textured layers and we played around with colours. We found that After Effects changed the outlook of our final product and made it look like a complete polished media product.