G321 - Preliminary Task Evalution

My piece of film has a good demonstration of continuity as the shots clearly join together. Individual scenes do not jump around and the camera appears to move with the people rather than having the people change place in the shot suddenly. For example, when Kieren is cycling, the two shots join together well and can easily be distinguished as being directly adjacent to each other.

The use of match on action was both evident and not evident at the same time. By this I mean that if you were looking for it, you would find it however, if you were not looking for it or did not know what it was, it would not be noticed as the change in shot is disguised by your mind being focused on the action in the shot rather than the shot change.

My clip clearly demonstrated my understanding of the 180 degree rule as the camera always remained within the 180 degree boundaries set out by the characters and therefore the audience would not have been confused or disorientated.

The use of shot/ reverse shot was evident at the beginning of the clip, between Kieren's phone and Kieren. The use of shot/ reverse shot was cleverly integrated into the video by being between an object and a person rather than between two people. This allowed me to shape the rest of the clip in a way which I was more comfortable with whilst still portraying that Kieren was in a vulnerable position.

If I were to film this again I would ensure that the lighting was consistent throughout the scenes to enhance the realism of the clip.

I would do this by using artificial lighting to create balanced lighting throughout. I would also use a microphone to get a crisper and clearer sound recording of the voices and to allow me to alter the levels myself. I would disclude the final scene of the school bell and would instead have had the bell ring cut over the scene of the students sat in the classroom as it is easy to see that the final image is fake and removes any sense of reality I had previously built up. Finally, I would compose the music myself so that I could make it more fitting for the clip and what was happening in it. This would also have allowed me to provide evidence of an understanding of sound editing.

My planning of this clip could have drastically improved as I was very all-of-the-place during the filming process. If I had planned my time better I would have been able to ensure that the same actors were available for the entire filming process and would have been able to spend more time actually filming and trying out different angles etc. than figuring out what I was supposed to be filming. This in turn would have meant my footage would have been of a higher quality and I would have been able to spend more time on ensuring other aspects such as lighting were correct rather than having to rush through the filming process.

Transitions were a common feature within my clip as they were used to signify the change in destination.

I believe this worked effectively as they made it clear that the perspective was changing and therefore helped to prevent the audience from becoming disorientated. by using the same transition throughout I prevented the clip from looking unprofessional and made it clearer that the perspective was only switching between two different ones.

When completing this task, I edited my footage using a previously unused editing programme. This allowed me to further my knowledge of different editing software. I learnt all of the basics for Final Cut Pro X as well as some of the slightly more complex functions such as how to mute certain aspects of clips and change the levels. I am happy with the progress I have made with this editing software and believe that I will use this same software for my future projects.

From constructing this clip I have learnt that equipment is very temperamental and that copies and backups of files should be kept continuously until there is no possible way that the footage could ever be needed again. This means that when editing, you can mix and match different aspects from the same scene and different takes to get the most perfect scene. I also learnt that all editing software is very different from each other and have their own shortcuts which are mainly non-transferrable. Finally, I learnt that technology is very temperamental and therefore you must be patient with it to achieve the best results.

I decided to work independently rather than in a group so as to be able to push my abilities to their limits and  prevent the risk of arguments and contrasting ideas which could have caused problems during the process. I believe that this was a good decision as I was still able to complete the task in the set time span and was happy with my final product. I aim to work independently for my future tasks also as I am able to focus more alone and can explore and improve my own abilities further.

G321 - Filming My Preliminary Task

When filming my piece, I found it was difficult to film the arc shot as I didn't have access to a Dolly and therefore first attempted to do this shot by hand which I found too shaky. I then decided to be as resourceful as possible and so placed the tripod on a desk chair and wheeled it however this prevented me from being able to arc as quickly as I would have liked as this would have caused the camera to fall off the chair and break.

I also found it difficult to film Kieren skidding the bike as the tripod was unable to go low enough for the shot and so I had to balance the camera on the floor. This meant it was quite unstable and as a result of this Kieren had to be careful when skidding the bike so as not to break the camera. To resolve this, he did not stop the bike completely and after the skid, cycled out of the frame. This will allow me to edit the clip so as to make it appear that Kieren did stop the bike.

When filming the shot in which Kieren speaks, I realised after filming that Kieren had been looking in the wrong place when speaking. This caused me to have to film this section again so as to comply with the 180 degree rule.

The main issue I had with filming my preliminary task was that my actors were unreliable and therefore filming dates kept having to be moved. This impacted on the filming as it meant having to spend less time filming than I would have liked so as to be able to film everything I wanted. However, when I started to near the deadline for the task I started dictating when I would be filming rather than asking and this made a big difference to whether my actors were in the right place at the right time and in the correct costume.

I made the decision to work individually as I feel I am able to work better this way and remain more focused on the task in hand without being distracted by people around me. I feel like I made the right decision in doing this as I was able to achieve all that I set out to within the given time and I was happy with my final film.

My favourite aspect of filming was when I was filming shots 13 and 14 because we had a lot of time to play around with these aspects whilst waiting for other actors to turn up. This resulted in many outtakes, some of which caused by my actor purposefully doing things completely wrong. This made the filming process more fun and light-hearted when it was starting to get very stressful and beginning to frustrate me. This proved that good working relationships between everyone involved can result in an enjoyable process as well as a successful outcome.

G321 - Preliminary Task Video

This is my preliminary task. It is a clip from a TV school drama which shows how two students usually start their day. Due to working individually, any input in this clip came from me, bar acting. This includes storyboarding, scripting, filming, re-filming and editing.