The differences between my preliminary task and the finished product are extremely obvious as my skills in filmmaking and my knowledge on how a movie has to be distributed, have improved immensely since the shot of the preliminary task. Using screencaps from both Sequences ( Preliminary left, Thriller right), I'm going to discuss how I fixed mistakes I had done in the preliminary task in my Thriller Opening Sequence.
Mise en Scene: In my preliminary task, the choice of location was very limited as I didn't have the time to carefully think the sequence trough. The background didn't fit with the storyline, and the main character just seems very misplaced with her gun. The costume and the light both didn't help to create a dark atmosphere as it was extremely sunny and both actors just seemd extremely miscasted. In the finished Thriller Opening Sequence, this is different. Helena, who plays the main character, was provided with an perfect outfit, which established her as the femme fatale she is supposed to represent. The locations and surroundings are much more realistic and the props are given more relevance and are introduced in better ways. Helena's ring for example is obviously shown in one of the shots, establishing that she is married where as the gun in the Preliminary task randomly appeared, without giving the viewer any possible understanding on what's going on.
Camerawork: A lot of changes also happened in the camerawork. In our original preliminary task, the different shots were all relatively flat. The shots in general would like an amateur movie, without any professionality. We would use zooms for example, which movies generally don't use anymore. In the thriller, I ultimately learned out of my mistakes. We used the camera for a lot more than just filming. We used different shots to deliver information to our audience. Helena's wedding ring shown to the camera for a purpose. The picture of Helena and Ted is the next example. We needed to introduce the husband apart from Helena talking to him on the phone, so we included several shots of family pictures in order for the viewer to understand who is talking to whom and what everything is about. The visual esthetics of the Thriller were much more distinctive than the ones in the Preliminary task and we spend a fair amount of time choosing the right cinematography which makes the Sequence what it is in my opinion.
Sound: The Sountrack to my preliminary task can't be compared to the one of the opening sequence. During the preliminary Task, there are several clips in the sequence where the sound just goes off, it crackles or doesn't make sense with the continuity. We would ignore little things like that during the editing progess where as we spend a lot more time and focus on the Thriller Opening Sequence, using self-generated songs we recorded post-filming and Sound providing programms such as Soundtrack Pro, which we got our score and a lot of different sound effects from. In the Preliminary Task the only 2 sounds we had were the door closing and the gun going off. In our finished Thriller, we used various sounds such as Telephone ring tone, Shower, door slamming and others. We also played with the volume of those sounds to establish distance. When the phone was ringing in the bag, the volume would be turned up after the character got the phone out for example. This way, the sequence seems more real and creates a verisimilitude atmosphere.
Editing: The differences between the editing of the two sequences are the most obvious. The Thriller Sequence offers a bigger variety on editing techniques than the Preliminary Task does. In the Preliminary Task, every clip follows the one before without any changes where as our Thriller Sequence has a lot of different editing techniques to it. For example the fades at the beginning and the ending of the sequence, the title cards and especially the Title Credits. We adjusted the brightness of some clips, and most importantly, changed the speed of several clips to create tension and suspense.
