Prelim Evaluation

Planning and Preparation

The planning and preparation for our preliminary task went pretty well, we started off selecting one piece of dialogue from a selection of three and created a storyboard using this dialogue. I found the story boarding quite easy because I could imagine the shots in my head therefore found it easy to draw onto paper. Before the lesson we started filming, we asked our friend whether she would act in it and arranged a time when we were all able to film and it work out to be in a media lesson. The storyboard was very useful when filming because we knew exactly what we wanted to do, therefore it took less time.

Practical Skills

Before we started filming we only had one actor so Jordy was in it also, even though we were working together it still worked out fine because we would stop to look over the shots and discuss our ideas. After we finished filming we looked back at the shots, we ending up being quite disappointed with the results and found a lot of shots that didn’t fit and didn’t match up to each other so we did it again in our spare time.

The second time we started filming was better because we had more time and could finish filming in on go. We stuck to our original storyboard but added in several shots before and after the dialogue, by doing this we could use a wider variety of shot types. This time we found it a lot easier and didn’t take so long.

From this task I have learnt about using the different shot types and angles first hand, also how different shots are used for different thing and some don’t work at certain times. It seems easy making short clip, but there is a lot to think about and things have to be planned. We found that when we looked back at some of the shots they didn't all fit or there were small things that we hadn’t noticed that didn't look quite right. We were able to acknowledge to bad thing therefore we can learn from our mistakes and use this for our next piece.

I also learnt how to edit the shots on the computer, for example cutting shots so they fitted and making them flow together. We realised how important continuity editing can be, especially when we looked back a our final product and realised some mistakes in the shots. But overall we feel our finalised piece was very good and generally flowed.

Another thing that didn't go so well was loading the shots from the camera onto the Mac's. This turned out to be very time consuming, so we decided to load it on to the normal computers and used Windows Movie Maker. We found that the software was straight forward so the editing was completed quite quickly. Although we didn’t use the Mac's this time we were able to play around with Final Cut Express on another small task, therefore are able to use both of the softwares.

What Have You Learn't From This Process

From doing this Preliminary Task I have leant how to shoot and edit. I found out that the planning and preparation is very important if you want a good final product. If I could do anything differently next time, I will defiantly make sure everything would fit and do each shot a couple of times to make sure we get it right, because it was very frustrating when you would spot minor thing that looked wrong. I found that me and Jordy work really well together because we are generally on the same wave length, and can both discuss and contribute ideas. We also share the work load and both want to do well making us a good team.