The main aim of the preliminary task was to become familiar with continuity and the 180 degree rule. It was also a good oppurtunity to gain more expereince in camera work, editing, and getting a good performance out of the actors. The preliminary video was only a short peice and only ivolved basic camera work and a small variety of shots.

In my preliminary, I used very basic editing skills when editing the footage. After watching the preliminary weeks later, I realised that when it came to editing my final piece, I needed to inlcude many special effects when editing to make it look more professional and more complex! In my final piece, I used many effects such as cross dissolve, fade to white and other transitions.
My preliminary video had a very limited variety of shots as it mainly consisted of close ups. Although close up shots is great to show a chatacter's features and emotions, I realised that my final piece needed to have a much bigger variety of shots in it. In my final peice, there are establishing shots, close ups, cut away shots, sceneray shots, mid-disatnce, long distance and many more. This made it a more interesting watch as the whole peice didnt consist of one type of shot.
My final peice contained A LOT more mise-en-scene than my preliminary video. The preliminary video had a very limited amount, if not any mise-en-scence what so ever.. so I realised that in my final piece I definitely needed to change that and thats exactly what I did - I PACKED it with the good old mise-en-scence. Some of the mise-en-scene in my final peice included the shot under the tunnel where Niall walks from the dark into the light, signifying how he's walking into a new life which will give him hope. I learnt that mise-en-scene is definitely one of the most, if not the most, important ingredient when making a film to create the certain mood you're looking for!

In my preliminary, I discovered that sound and music is a major contributor to setting the mood of the piece. The soundtrack in the prelimanry completley transformed the video from being a poor watch.. to a very good watch! The soundtrack worked perfectly with the video as is set the mood to just how i wanted it to be. This made me realise that i needed to do the same in my final peice. As I was aware that the soundtrack was such an important element of the 2 minute opening, I spent a lot of time trying to find the perfect song. I finally found a cover of the Coldplay song 'Trouble' performed by the unsigned band Obadiah Parker. The song fit the opening perectly and it created the exact mood we were hoping for.