My Prelim Evaluation

CONTINUITY PRE-LIM VIDEO ABOVE

1. Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?

There were 3 other people in my group, Ray, Sailesh and Sian. We split the task between us, Ray and Sailesh were acting and Sian and 1 were working on managing sound and directing shots. However, we planned for the preliminary task together. For the editing process I was paired with Sian. Everyone managed the task really well and were very time efficient, everyone put forward suggestions and we had discussions over each of them to make sure every member of the group agreed with it.



group photo

2. How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try and take into account?

To plan the sequence we created a shoot-board, a script and a shot list to save time. The shoot-board was very effective in helping us see how we were to angle our shot and who should be acting in it. We didn’t use the shootboard exactly from shot to shot; we switched shot 10 and 11 during editing as we felt that looked more realistic.

shoot-board

The Script was good because it made sure that the lines were the same in different shots so that we could easily edit and cut things together without a hassle. The shot  list was helpful as we shot similar scenes at once to save time so there would be less ‘setting up’ however due to the fact that it was not in chronological order it got confusing at times.

shot list

Since both groups knew that we had a scene outside the classroom in a corridor we negotiated timings so that weren’t filming at the same time. During filming we used varying theories effectively to make sure that the preliminary task brief was met. The theories included the 180-degree rule, the 30-degree rule, match-on-action, shot-reverse-shot and the use of master shots for establishing the scene of the place. 

180 degree rule

 The narrative structure that we had was quite understandable as the conversation was simple and brief. Also the actors were very helpful with how they expressed their new personas making it that much easier for the audience.

3. What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?

For technology the camera was set up on a Libec TH-650 HD  tripod which made sure that the shots we were taking were properly balanced, it was height adjustable so we could get different angles from it, making it more flexible. This was good as it meant we could shoot from different angles. For example, low angle and high angle. The camera we used as the Canon Legria HFG3O which was also very lightweight so we could carry it around easily. The camera came with headphones and a Canon DM-100 Directional microphone which we used to manage sound so that we knew exactly what was heard in the shot at all times and if we needed to re-do anything due to factors like background noise.

camera and headphones

The hardware that we used was the PCs in school, which were running on Windows 7. The software that we used was 'Adobe Premier' this was for editing the clips together to make sure that it was continuous. The media technician uploaded these clips after we had finished filming. The first part of the editing process was to rename all of the clips into the shot number and take number so that we could quickly identify where the different shots were.

adobe premiere screen shot

We watched through all of them and labelled each one good or bad so that we knew exactly which ones to select. Before we started Emma gave us a quick demo of how to use the software, she informed us of the multiple-tracks feature which we used to place our scenes. Sian and I had to make sure that the different shots were always alternating between two tracks. In order to match the action and therefore meet the continuity task we tried to make the final frame of one-shot match exactly with the first shot of the next, we did this by having the actor re-do the last bit so that it had more of a natural flow, this was very helpful when editing.

4. What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?

We had to take different factors into account when planning, shooting and editing since we were doing it within a school setting. One thing we did have to plan around was the school bell, to make sure that it wouldn’t ruin any scene or else we would have had to re-do it. Also we were filming in a classroom that was near a field were students were running and screaming, because of that we needed to film the shot again but this time with closed windows to make sure that the lowest level of sound was coming from there. A huge limitation we had was regarding timing as we only had an hour for filming and the same for editing. This meant that we had to do fewer takes of each scene and to just accept the ones we had and work with that as we were unable to fix the audio across certain shots which became apparent during the editing process.


photo of my group filming

5. How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/ do differently?

The Brief was a short task which required us to include shot-reverse-shot, match on action, a brief conversation whilst not breaking the 180 degree rule. The sequence was overall successful in doing this. We used our planning materials properly and always looked at them for reference making it all exactly how we pictured.


Example Gifs of the techniques used below...

Shot-reverse-shot

Match on Action

180 degree rule

In hindsight, there were some shots that could have been better for example shot 12 were Sailesh shouts “hello” in Ray’s face and he replies with “I don’t care” because of that angle Sailesh is covering Ray’s face so we don’t get to see his annoyed expression.

gif of task

Due to timing we had to accept that final shot, however to improve we would have filmed one better take perhaps at a two shot or a close-up. There was also an audio error with Sailesh walking into the class, for some reason there was no sound so we had to take more time in the editing room fixing that.

6. What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?

This preliminary task has taught me how to make film a sequence in a short amount of time, which will become useful for my future creations. From the editing process I have now become familiar with the 'Adobe Premiere' software so from now on editing will hopefully take a shorter amount of time. I have improved my skills in shooting which will make sure that the filming for my future opening sequence is of good quality. The pre-production process taught me how much preparation is necessary for such a simple sequence with only a couple lines of dialogue. A clear shoot-board was needed and a lot of discussions for example about shot angles etc., needed to be had so that all parties in the group were happy and on the same page. Something that I should do for the future is to make a physical account of which takes were good so that I wouldn’t need to go through every single clip when editing. Also going through each scene as a test run would be a good idea, as sometimes adjustments from the shoot board may need to be made, as the action/angle in real life may look odd. Now that I have all this new information it would make future projects slightly easier since I now know how to improve from my mistakes. However my future coursework will be at a much larger scale making it more difficult therefore getting experience through the preliminary task was very beneficial in making sure nothing goes wrong in the future.