Evaluation - 3

 3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

My production skills at the start of the project:

My production skills after the project 

Codes and Conventions 

After the project, my codes and conventions understandings have significantly increased. Through understanding of credit structures, I analysed the credit structure for Panic Room, and initially thought that the directors and producers should be at the start of the opening scene, but after analysing the opening scene, I realised it was the other way around. Throughout my film opening, I used the same credit structure I had analysed. 

Planning & Organisation

Similarly, as for my planning and organisational skills, they have only increased to 8. My planning and organisation at the very start of this project was good, as I made sure to do as much pre-production as possible, for example, I made sure to scout out all the possible locations and finding all my props, well before I started drafting my storyboard. In terms of props, I used makeshift props to show blood, i.e. tomato sauce on a neck blurred in the background. It came out well, and all my props had fit in with the context of my film opening. 

Camera Work 

For camera work, my skills have significantly increased, as I became more and more familiar with the camera I was given. I also used a dolly track for my beginning shots, and although it was difficult to set up, the shots came out beautifully. I used the dolly track in the very beginning, in which the character is shown getting their equipment ready. I combined various different shot types, (mostly wide and close-ups), to show the intensity of the situation. I also used the rule of thirds, as seen in Hitchcock’s work, in which the camera cuts in 3 consecutive shots to show a subject, usually for emphasis. I used this when my main character placed a polaroid on her wall, and moved out of frame, before it cut to 3 shots of the picture, gradually getting closer each time. For this shot, I had to redo it quite often, as the polaroid was often not in focus, and therefore the scene had to be done again. For some of my scenes I used close-ups on needles, scissors and thread to really reflect the character their personality. 

Visual FX 

For visual FX, I didn't use any special effects as such, but I used after effects to mask credits and used colour grading to highlight and isolate colours, therefore gaining new skills, but I did not use these in the end, besides using highlighting of colours in Final Cut Pro. 

In terms of prior experience, I didn't have entirely a lot besides making some blood drops in after effects and using the drawing tool in edits of people. 

Creative confidence 

For creative confidence, I didn’t have much of an idea as to what I was going to do for my film, as I spent days dueling over the ideas and other influences from existing media products. However, after spending lots of time, I figured out what I could use as an opening narrative, deriving it from existing media products, such as Fractured (2019) and Taking Lives (20??). I experimented with different shot types, after having got the camera, and used it to try out different shots and angles, to really get an idea of how I could portray everything. For effectively displaying my credits, I used after effects, by using mainly the rotobrush tool for masking the credits. Initially, I used after effects before for editing clips of people and using it for making audio edits, but hadn’t used rotobrush before, and therefore it took time getting used to, through tutorials online. I had also used path tracking and 3D camera tracking for my credits, to potentially see if they would come out well and whether they would fit in with the rest of my credits, but they didn’t come out too well, but I gained the skills of using 3D camera tracking.

Editing 

Similarly, for editing, it took quite some time for me to properly edit my opening, as I had lots of footage that I’d recorded, in order to maximise the amount of footage and scenes I could utilise. I also recorded some more close-up scenes of a scissors going through fabric, as well as a needle going through fabric, all in order to further build up tension and uneasiness, however, these scenes needed heavy colour correcting and for blur to be added onto them, which took even more time, as I had already used colour grading and blurred the rest of the necessary films. During the clipping of scenes and cutting down my footage, I had to match-on-action my sewing scenes, as I had used rotobrush in AE and had to match the two scenes together, which had initially resulted in a a jump-cut, but after several rounds of cutting and duplicating the clip, it looked good, despite not perfectly fitting in.