1. Preliminary Task Evaluation
1) My role for the preliminary task was to help out with directing and filming. At the beginning, when
we started to make the film I and my group member Zak came up with the idea for the first shot,
which was an aerial/ medium shot. This is when the viewers get a surrounding of where the film is
set, this creates a sense of realism for the audience as the house and where it is set is an ordinary
location, therefore creating the idea of it happening to anybody which is quite threatening. I also
thought of the light switching on, in the top window, this therefore makes the audience feel as if
someone was looking down on the girl therefore making her seem even more innocent and
vulnerable, as this is what we wanted to create for this character. Zak then helped come up with the
idea of the unknown character looking down on the innocent girl which helped make her look even
more vulnerable, also creating secrecy and dominance for the unknown character within the piece. I
also had done some of the camera shots within in the preliminary film opening, and helped with my
group member Kelsey of the view of the girl’s feet walking past and also helped my group member
Hannah with the 180 degree rule of when the characters are having a conversation. Overall I learnt a
lot of techniques with the camera shots/ angles, technique and storyline to all help me with creating
the perfect final horror film opening.
2) What worked well whilst shooting our preliminary task was that we distributed roles. As a group
we decided to distribute roles fairly and equally so that everybody would get a fair and equal part to
play in making our preliminary film. We also agreed to distribute our time fairly so that everybody
had an equal time on working on it. What also worked well in our group was our ability to work
together as one team; we had very good contact with each other in sixth from and out and the use
of social networking sites like twitter, facebook and via text messages. This therefore helped and
enabled us to update each other through the process when either one of us had an idea to do with
the prelim task. I and my group also have the ability to commit to each other, which therefore
helped us with arranging more than one specific date in advance which helped us be more involved
in the whole task overall. Throughout the editing process we all worked as a group and watched
each takes in turns to make sure we would have the same final cut express ability. The main thing
however I thought we worked on very well was the ability to work with the tools we had got given.
For example a bad quality, dysfunctional camera, but however managed to make the best of it. My
favourite shot throughout our preliminary film opening was the smooth transition in the match on
action shot, (when the girl is walking in to the house) as we focused very hard making it flow and
look effective, and came out with a very good outcome.
3) What didn’t work so well for our preliminary task was our timing, when we filmed our preliminary
it wasn't best suited for the camera we had because from filming it at night. So when it came down
to editing we had to adjust the lighting really high and contrast it to make it easier for the viewers
watching it to see what was happening. At the beginning there were lots of ideas which made it out
to be more difficult than it should have been, so when we started to film we didn't have a story
board to work from. We also found an error whilst watching back the final edited preliminary task,
this was when the character opens the door whilst its creaks, but as soon as she walks forward the
door it begins to move again but there is no creak. We also found another error when the two
characters are having a conversation where the knife switches different directions, this shows that

2. we took our shots in different stages. The tools and pre-shot planning was definitely the number one
problem that had caused the most problems. As we had some technical issues with the camera at
night which therefore effected the quality of the camera from it not being good, it then made the
camera automatically auto focus onto a random part in the shot, making the image blur without us
having any control over it. We also found out whilst shooting we had a broken tripod; this therefore
made some of the shots difficult to produce. The camera pan was one of these shots; we tried to do
this shot across steadily as the tripod has a part of it missing which therefore would not let the
camera move on top of the tripod, meaning that we had limited shots we could experiment with
making us change most of them slightly. But the main thing that didn’t work so well was our group
planning and quality, we should have been much better with planning as by doing this we could of
checked all of our equipment to see if it was working or not and change them if we had to. Our
quality also needed to improve more as we should have tested filming it in the dark before doing the
actual filming in the dark as this increased the poor quality factor.
4) There are lots of things me and my group members are thinking about doing differently in our
next main task. One of the main factor is that we will be more selective of the place we film as we
found out the hard way from our preliminary, whilst we were filming the aerial shot at the beginning
we had to stop and wait as cars kept coming past on the road as the house is unfortunately placed
on an main road, we also found it hard to communicate with our actress because of her being on the
other side of the road. We will also be more selective of the location we will choose as we were
meant to be doing it at one place, and then kept changing as people couldn't get lifts down. Next
time we will create a schedule as well so we don't have to film all in one night and
could therefore take more time in getting the write shots for our film opening, as we ended up
filming for hours and as it was on a Sunday it therefore affected our efficiency and concentration.
We will next have a prepared story board with all the camera shots, angles and movements, already
prepared props and a script for the actors to work from so we can run by it and know what we are
doing on the day and have more time in actually shooting and directing, rather than thinking about
the shot types and story line we want to produce. We would try to fit in practice rehearsals for
example testing the equipment by making sure it is all fully functional and running through the film
opening and anything else that needs to be done. The lighting was a big issue therefore I will make
sure it’s all ok as we tried to brighten the prelim video on the final cut express but just because the
quality was bad this therefore would only make it worse. To avoid this situation we would have to
have create intense planning and organisation. I and my group will also look for obstacles that would
affect our filming more as we shot across the road, this was not only dangerous for me and my
group members but was also very hard to catch a certain gap in the cars as they kept coming 1 after
another. Overall the final thing we need to concentrate on whilst filming our final film is to not rush
any of it, to take our time and be more certain and précised on how we want things to be done as
we didn’t do this in our prelim.
5) The mise-en-scene we had in our setting was well thought out and planned however we found
some issues on set that we had let slip. At the start of planning our film we wanted to set our house
in and older, creepier looking house at night to therefore create the typical codes and conventions of
a horror film opening. However with the house we chose to work on, there was a shadow of a tree
foreshadowing onto the house creating the sense of dominance and power for the character that
lived there which we wanted to create in the first place. There was also a street light outside which
we thought helped get back the code and conventions which were missing as it had a very spooky

3. feeling glow. We then chose to use a normal house on a normal street to symbolise that such horror
events could happen anywhere and that the young girl could represent anybody in the audience.
This is therefore creating the sense of realism, uncertainly and the sense of felling unsafe within
their own home which the audience will find distressing which is what we wanted to create. Before
me, Hannah and Kelsey arrived to start filming at our group members Zak’s house; he took all of
family photos of the wall and covered everything with white sheets to give the house a disused, old
secretive feeling with conventions and codes of horror films, which helps add to the spooky
atmosphere. However we did have slip ups with the props as the knife moved without anybody in
the scene moving it. This was a shot reverse shot, where the knife moved the other way round
before he even started to threatened her, showing that the shot had been taken in different stages.
We chose the male actor to have the knife prop as we thought this would create a threatening tense
atmosphere for the audience as they start to feel worried for the actress, they do this as they do not
know when he is going to attack her. There is a necklace with a cross on it that we decided to wrap
around the knife because we thought it would represent him as being possessed and psychotic as
psychological horrors normally have some reference to religion.
Sound was also very important for our prelim film as we wanted to create a dramatic tense build up
in the atmosphere which we all thought would work well because of the sound being unnerving,
however some of the sounds we used did not sound realistic and the volume being too high. An
example of this is when the sound of the door creaks, which we found very unrealistic and was too
loud which therefore affected the sense of realism to the viewers. The owl was also unrealistic as
there was no background noises only the owl. However the sound that was realistic was the knife as
the sound was created within the shot which we then used as diegetic sound.
Editing was fairly simple for us as it was only a snip it of the film, but the hardest process we found
was learning how to use Final Cut Express with the main problems being the transitions and the
simple cross fades. We used the effect of a fade in and a fade out at the begin and end of the clip to
signify it was only part of a film which would be continued. We also tried to lighten the scenes that
were shot outside using the final cut program but this only made it worse as the quality wasn’t a
good standard enough to make it clearer.
We got simple instructions to feature shot types in our camera work which were a Shot Reverse
Shot, Match on Action Shot and the 180 Degree Rule. I and my group thought we used these shots
very well with the narrative, as the 180 Degree Rule and Shot Reverse Shot fit in well with the
conversation. However we were not centred correctly and Kelsey is slightly off centre but the Match
on Action Shot was smooth and effective to show the whole of the hallway and her walking to the
house.