Evaluation of preliminary task

Our preliminary task was not as successful as we were hoping it would be. However, there are some positive comments about our preliminary task such as the continuity for example the opening of the door. I feel this was well edited as it looked like it was done all in one take. I also think that the overall timing of our clip was enough. We also added transitions to smoothen the opening and ending, we added in the fade in and fade out effect. I think this made the overall piece look better as it gave it more of a finishing touch. We used these transitions to make the piece look more finished because without them, at the end of the clip it would just stop and it looked like it was unfinished so by adding in these transitions it made the clip look more finished. Another shot we were particularly happy about was when the main subject was walking and then had to turn around the corner, this was done by taking two shots however due to good editing it looked like it was all done in one shot. I think that in all our shots that all the mise-en-scene was good as it was relevant as there were no random, unwanted people walking through shots. Also we made sure that we had appropriate costume such as formal clothing to represent what type of characters they were.

Our planning process went well and was not as successful as we thought it would be, as it did not match our final filming such as the timings as they were either too long or too short. However, we followed our storyboard correctly and this was successful as all our shots match our storyboard plan.

On the other hand, there were many problems with our piece. Firstly, there were unwanted background noises such as the movement of the camera as well as the camera being quite shaky in some shots. Secondly, we accidently forgot to take a shot of the shot reverse shot due to being in a rush with filming, which was a disappointment. In our piece we did a two shot instead of a shot reverse shot, which is was bad as we were expected to do a shot reverse shot. We also did not use the 180-degree rule as we forgot to do the shot reverse shot. One shot that my group and I are not happy with is the over the shoulder shot as it makes the audience feel like they are the door as it was filmed from where the door was shown in the previous shot. This was not done intentionally, however we did try to aim for a over the shoulder shot to make the audience more aware of the setting of where the characters were and who else was there, it showed that these two characters were the only characters in this shot. Another problem we felt there was in our piece was the lighting, this was not completely our fault as this was ambient lighting but due to this, the main subject appeared dark, which we did not want.

From this preliminary task, I have learnt a lot and hopefully will not make any of these same mistakes in my real task. For example, now I know that shot reverse shot must be done otherwise it will not be a good enough piece.  I also have learnt about timings, while filming 5 seconds it is much longer than it seems. In addition, I have learnt about different shots to use and how to make the filming better like making sure the camera does not shake and not to move it around much so the noises will not be made.