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

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

Our Preliminary task.

We learnt many things from our Preliminary task.

What skills did you use in your preliminary task?

The skills we used in our Preliminary task included: using a camera effectively, finding the right setting, match on action, over the shoulder shot, shot reverse shot and using mise-en-scene effectively. Whilst some of these things went well, others didn't and we subsequently learnt from these for our main task.

What went well?

We accurately used match on action when Daniel walked into the office, we showed him walking toward the door, and from inside the office we had his face appearing from the opening door. This worked well as it created a sense of fluidity in the scene. We also effectively used an over the shoulder shot of Brolin looking over Daniels shoulder. This aided us in creating a sense of cohesion. Without an over the shoulder shot the scene can lack a sense of togetherness, if we only had them in separate shot reverse shots we would lose the other person in the scene and it would no longer feel like a dialogue but more of two people separately talking to the camera. As the cameraman I didn't use the camera stand very often which meant I had to try and keep myself very still in order to create a professional nature to the film. Also when following Daniel toward the door I had to move without wheels or tracks so it was quite hard to follow him and keep the camera steady, however I think the group managed this quite well.

What went wrong?

Well, using the camera effectively didn't always go according to plan. Many times Brolin would lean forward in his chair as a sign of 'passion' in his acting, however he neglected to let me know that he was going to do it, so when he did, I often cut out most of his head as I wasn't ready for it. This wouldn't have been the case if myself, Brolin and Daniel had sat down and planned every shot rather than going with the flow. Also, as we were pressed for time, we often didn't watch them back until we got to the editing process. A lack of planning meant there was only so much effectiveness we could have through camera shots, etc. However we learnt from this and myself, Brolin and Yusuf planned our main task thoroughly so that if circumstances forced us to change location or actors couldn't make certain dates, we would plan for this and make sure we had enough time to get everything done.

Using the shot reverse shot didn't work quite as well as we would have hoped. The main issue was the eyeline match. If you watch our Preliminary task, the main problem is the eye contact. Brolin especially was looking all over the place, Daniel was a bit more accurate however not totally. When filming Brolin, Daniel would move out of the way for myself and the camera to get into space, this meant that Brolin had no idea where Daniel had been in the previous shot, this meant it wasn't accurate and it took away from the professionalism and accuracy of the scene. Again, we all learnt from this and Brolin and I would sit in the positions we needed to be in when the other person was in the shot, this meant our eyelines matched throughout and the accuracy of the scene was maintained.

Another problem, and problem the biggest was the breaking of the 180 degree rule. Throughout, when filming Daniel I was slightly too far left of Brolin which left us with a confusing scene. Also at the end of the scene, the 180 degree rule was completely broken. As Daniel left, we were on the right hand side of the scene as he left. We then filmed Brolin shaking his head, again breaking the 180 degree rule. We subsequently made sure that in our main task we remained on the right of the scene the whole time and never broke the 180 degree rule. This meant our main task made sense and we have a fluid, clear scene. IF we were going to break this in our main task, it would have been a deliberate choice, like The Shining when Jack Nicholson is talking to himself in the bathroom. However thrillers rarely break the 180 degree rule. The Shining was a psychological thriller/horror and this meant it would have tried to mess with the audience.

Here is a moment from our film. I believe it highlights everything that is correct with our main task compared to our preliminary task. If you notice, the camera stays on one side of the action. Never breaking the 180 degree rule. Also we used real lights, being the gaffer it was my responsibility to ensure that the lighting created the atmosphere that I wanted, whereas in the preliminary, we didn't know how to use the lights and therefore we had to use natural lighting, the location chosen was right by a glass roof which allowed a lot of light to flood into the office through the windows of the office. This ruined the conventions of an action thriller, which we made sure didn't happen in our main film.