After completion of our opening two minutes, it is interesting to look back and assess our progression from Preliminary Task to the final product and consider how much we have learnt. There are a variety of areas in which we have improved greatly, the main reason for this is probably the fact that we had longer to plan, as well as being able to see the mistakes that were made in the Preliminary Task and learning from them.
An issue in the Preliminary Task that wasn't tackled effectively was the amount of exposure, that made the distant sky look very white. Not only this, but it also made some characters' faces look very pale, which greatly damaged the professional quality of the production. In the final task we countered this by checking each of the shots afterwards, particularly the shots that had a lot of sky in them. It was helpful that on the day it was fairly cloudy, so the sun didn't affect it too much. There was only one instance of overexposure in the opening, which was when Davidson is following Jim through the underground in the shot before he walks out into Trafalgar Square. This was caused by the lights along the side of the corridor that reflected off the white walls. Unfortunately this couldn't be fixed in post, and this is the least professional looking shot of the whole film. Overall I think that we have learnt from this mistake and worked out how to minimise the amount of shots that are ruined due to the overexposure, and the opening two minutes looks a lot better in that respect.
Preliminary Task
The garden in the background of this shot is an example of the serious overexposure that occurred in the preliminary task. A whole third of this shot is ruined by this.
Opening Two Minutes
The overexposed shot in the opening two minutes. The lights on the ceiling are much too overexposed, making the entire shot look very bad quality.
Opening Two Minutes
This shot is an example of how we improved the exposure from the preliminary task. It includes the sky, clouds, and a distant background, all of which are at risk of overexposure, but we managed to fix it this time.
The colour in the preliminary task didn't always look amazing, and I think that this was something that we improved on greatly in the final opening two minutes. The colours didn't look cinematic enough, and between the different rooms in the house, there was a very different shade, which prevented the film from gaining it's own distinctive look. In the opening two minutes we improved this by making sure we kept referring back to our original plan for the colour. We had previously decided that the more prominent colours would be the greys, greens and blues, as these are colours that complimented Trafalgar Square's look. By having this as our base palette we were able to make sure that the whole opening looked as if it was from the same film, and it gave it a very distinct look. The end result made it look much more cinematic and professional than the preliminary task, which seemed to have too much variety in colour for an action/thriller film.
A notable improvement was the location. The preliminary task was simply shot at my house, which isn't the most interesting location to shoot an action film at. It looked far too much like an ordinary house and this made it lose much of the film's impact. We improved this by choosing a hugely iconic, London location that gave the opening two minutes production value. Trafalgar Square has been used in many thrillers, including the recent film 'Skyfall'. By using it, our film looked as if it were worthy to sit along greats such as these.
The props were another improved feature of our opening two minutes. In the preliminary task we didn't think much about the types of props we would use, so we used whatever we could get our hands on on the day. However in the opening two minutes, we spent hours searching for just the right props to use, such as the suitcase that 'Jim' is carrying, and the earpiece that the characters use. The costumes were also more developed, and each character's costume was meticulously thought through, which gave our lead protagonist a very distinctive look with his long trenchcoat style jacket. The costumes in the preliminary task ended up being whatever the actors were wearing on the day.
In regards to match on action, I think that we managed to get it quite well already on the preliminary task. But it was good to be able to apply it to the opening two minutes in the part where 'Yung' stamps on the earpiece and also with the fight sequence near the end. The 180 degree rule was adhered to both times, however in the opening two minutes it wasn't so relevant, due to the fact that the conversation was occurring across earpieces. However, occasionally we broke the 180 degree rule in the fight sequences during the preliminary task, but not so in the final opening two minutes. This was mainly because there was a wall stopping the camera from being able to break the 180 degree rule. In the preliminary task shot reverse shot was used a few times, but we didn't really feel that we had had the opportunity to experiment with it as much as we would have liked to. In the opening two minutes, we played around with it by trying it across a conversation that wasn't face to face. I think that this worked extremely well, and was definitely an advancement in our film making skills.
Overall I think that we have improved greatly from our preliminary task, and this can be clearly seen. The preliminary task certainly taught us a lot, such as how to choreograph a fight sequence well, as well as basic techniques such as match-on-action and the 180 degree rule. I think that we took on what went wrong in the preliminary task, and successfully overcame those problems when it came to the opening two minutes.
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