Preliminary Task Evaluation

For our preliminary task our group had to follow the brief which was - ‘A continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue’. Prior to filming; in order to complete our task our group had to create a storyboard which related to the requirements of the brief and demonstrated the 180⁰ Degree Rule, Match On Action and Shot Reverse Shot.

Though this task we were introduced to various pieces of hardware including a Canon Camera, tripod and an Apple MacBook. When using the camera, it was important that we learnt the key features of the equipment such as the creative features (if needed), playback button etc. in order to use the hardware effectively. These features allowed us to shoot from different perspectives to make the video more interesting and portray our scenario how we wanted it. On the other hand a weakness of the Canon Camera includes its sound quality as it fails to capture the main parts of dialogue very clearly and captures too much background noise. Whilst filming our scenario we also used a tripod so that the camera could remain steady in order to noticeably reduce unwanted camera movement and to remain at an ideal height for filming. Using a tripod also allowed us to capture a variety of shots more smoothly for a better fluent professional feel.

Before filming, our group came up with a few ideas on how we were going to portray the brief. This short thinking process allowed us to identify different parts of our location we could use effectively and the different shots we could display within the sequence. When we began to film and issues began to arise we tried to change our overall approach to how we were filming and the ways in which we tried to capture our scenario, this allowed us to re-evaluate our overall sequence in order to produce a  better outcome.

When we began to approach the editing aspect of the preliminary filming task we were introduced to i-Movie on the Apple MacBook, which was a new piece of software I did not have previous experience with. Importing our footage was quite simple and involved a few easy steps which was a positive aspect of this software. Our next stage involved learning how to navigate around i-Movie and looking at the different features available within the editing process. After dragging our footage from the viewing pane, we began to play the footage in real time as well as scanning though various parts, then we began to split some sections and delete a few. We also began to edit parts of our sequence so we could demonstrate the Match On Action and Shot Reverse Shot technique, this part of the editing process involved carefully editing different sections so that the actions within the clip would be seamlessly synchronised. The Match On Action technique was difficult at first as it requires careful continuity without a noticeable jump in time; but I believe we were able produce this technique well. This introduction into parts of the editing process allowed us to re-work some of our footage and gain a better understanding of this new software.

Overall our footage did meet the requirements of the brief, however in order to be more successful next time when performing another practical filming task it would be more useful to utilise our given time more effectively in terms of editing as we could have added a few sound effects.