Evaluation Q7 Learnt since prelim

Schematic showing the axis between two characters and
 the 180 degree arc where camera's may be placed

Since the initial prelim task i've learnt a lot about the film making process, what it involves and how to make the best film possible. We learnt tricks to make the film as well shot and look as good as possible such as the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot (although since there is only one character in our film these weren't used too often).



A screenshot of Christian Bale as
Patrick Bateman in American Psycho



Our original story board in the early
stages of production



One of the most important things I have learnt since the prelim is the importance of reasearch and planning when making a film, more specifically research on the genre of the film your making and films you plan to take influence from. An example of this would be our research into American Psycho. Planning plyed an important role in time management in our production which we could have done better in retrospect, for example the use of storyboards in helping us envision what our film would look like and how we wanted it to look.



We also learnt the importance of casting in our production, this isn't to say we had auditions for the role but we wanted to consider how the person cast as our main character would look for example someone with long blonde hair would not be able to convincingly portray a male in his early twenties than someone with shorter dark hair.  

Another aspect of filming we have learnt the importance of is mise en scene, for example a male in his twenties would not have pink bed sheets (something we failed to consider in our original cut). This also relates to the importance of doing a rough cut to location scout and make sure everything is in order, it also helps the fact that you can then edit and change the production to make it better. 

Audience feedback was also very helpful to get opinions on how to improve our producton and what we have done right.

A very important part of creating our own production was choosing the soundtrack and getting the right blend of diagetic and non diagetic sound, we tried various sound effects in each rough cut using iMovie HD such as in our first cut we used water drops to build up tension and in a later cut we changed to a slow piano melody to build up tension.