Evaluation of Preliminary Task

What camera and editing techniques and codes did you use in your film and how do they influence the audience’s understanding of the film?
We used 180 degree rule, match on action and shot/reverse shots. They influence the audience by letting them hear and see the story from each character's perspective and point of view. This can then lead to the audience interpreting the film in different ways, for example, Amy being in the wrong or Dan being in the wrong.

How did you use new technologies in your construction, planning and evaluation and what skills do you have at using this technology?
I had never really filmed using a video camera before so it was a good experience for me and also for the group. I now have filming skills and know how to film certain shots and shot types. I have never used Adobe Premiere Elements only Windows Movie Maker so that was also a new experience and one that was somewhat hard to grasp the concept of! This has now given me editing skills on a larger scale. I had already used YouTube before so that was no problem. And the only time I have ever had a blog is on my Bebo account so blogger was a new experience but not entirely new. I had the basic knowledge so was able to ustilise this.

How successfully does your final product meet the brief?

Original Brief: “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. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.”

We had Amy (me) opening the door and sitting in the chair opposite Dan. We had a short conversation and used all three of the shot types. We met the brief fairly well but could have done a lot more at a higher quality to achieve the brief more. Overall, however, we have done everything to the best of our ability as a group but could have given individual input a lot more.

Storyboards for our Preliminary Task

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Originally uploaded by Amy173

Our updated Final Cut Preliminary Task

Changes...

We may change our thriller film opening shots to something different as it is freezing weather conditions and rave clothes aren't warm enough. Therefore to keep changing would take up too much time and, therefore, we would have to film over more days than usual.

We are going to have the four characters in a circle, they are smoking and playing with a dog. And one character is drawing a man hiding suspiciously in a bush. As the gunshot sounds and the characters run away, Emily throws her drawing onto the floor. The man who pulled the trigger will hide in the bush later on in the opening. He walks up to the sketch book, the camera is low down as we watch his feet as he stops at the book (worm's eye or low angle). He picks it up and we cut to the picture. He drops it onto the floor and we fade to the characters running away.