What I have learnt in the progression from my preliminary task to the full product

1. Editing

1.1. Since my preliminary task I really improved my knowledge of how to use Final Cut Pro X. By the final film I was able to edit the colour, speed, and format of each shot. For example, when we wanted a series of shots to appear as it would in a home video, we were able to adjust the colour settings (saturation, brightness, contrast etc) to create the warmer, homely atmosphere that we wanted and this contrasted with the rest of the shots which were much cooler in colour. For the moments when we wanted to distort the shot slightly and show that our character was being manipualted by the schizophrenia, we altered the speeds that the shot played, varying from extremely fast, backwards and slow motion. This was perfect to create the desired effect. We were also able to add text in the format of a type writer writing it, due to the effect called 'typewriter' that we found on Final Cut Pro X. This really contributed to the story line and would have been extremely time consuming if Final Cut Pro X didn't have the vast number of effects that it does. It has many sound effects with all different variations that sound natural and plausible - unlike others on different websites - which gave our film a professional feel and was easy to drag onto the clip. We learnt how to match the sound effects to the video by detatching the audio to see where the peaks of the volume were and then match it to that. We also saved valuable time through learning how to use in and out points by pressing the keys 'I', 'O' and 'W'. Final Cut Pro X also offered many transition options (through shapes for example) however, to maintain the atmosphere in our film we remained with the simpler one. In my preliminary task I only used simple cutting with minimum audio.

2. Mise en scene

2.1. The biggest lesson I learnt about mise en scene was how vital the continuity of it was. For example when filming the same scene I had to make sure the weather and natural light was the same, the hair and costumes were the same, the props and the setting. This was something that we didn't have to think about as much when doing the preliminary task as that was one scene shot over an hour, whereas our final film was lots of different scenes shot over a series of days.

3. Camera

3.1. I have learnt how to unpack and pack up a camera as well as setting it up ready to film. I have also learnt how to prepare the correct settings on the actual camera and how each setting affects the shot. As well as learning to focus a shot correctly, and ensure it isn't pixellated as noticed in out preliminary film, I have learnt different types of shots such as static, still, moving with a steady cam and also a hand held shot which created the atmosphere that was lacking in our preliminary task. From a simple still and tracking shot in the preliminary task, I feel I have created a much more variated and advanced knowledge of how to use the camera in different ways.

4. Sound

4.1. During our preliminary task we had to add the sound on after wards and so I learnt how to coordinate it altogether. I learnt how to prevent distorted sound by balancing out the input levels on the microphone. To create pure sound I referred to the green db reader and it had to be between -30 and -6 decibels. To create the atmosphere that was lacking from my preliminary task, we wanted a thought provoking, atmospheric sound track and so we looked at a website called Audio Network where we sourced many possible songs and finally narrowed it down to one that was suitable and paid 80p for it, ensuring that it was all legal.