My Prelim Evaluation

This is the video of my finished Preliminary Exercise.

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

Me (left), Emilio (middle), and Jack (right)

On this project I worked with Jack Edmondson and Emilio Francischelli . I felt that we worked well as a team and split up the jobs evenly between ourselves.

Us working on the storyboard

We worked well together in the planning stage, and were all able to throw in our own ideas. We worked as a democracy deciding everything between ourselves in a democratic fashion. This worked well as we were able to quickly come up with a premise for a story. Our own personalities were able to bounce off each other, helping us to add humor to our sequence as well.

Me and Jack in shot, with Emilio behind the camera.

When filming we took roles that worked to our strengths. Jack and I mostly acted, whilst Emilio was in charge behind the camera. Even though we mostly stayed in our comfort zones, we all had a go at filming our shots.

Me when I was editing.

Emilio and Jack editing.

As there were three of us we split into a pair and a single. Emilio and Jack went together, as their time tables synced, so they could work well together. Whilst I edited by myself. Even though I enjoy working as a group I liked editing by myself, as it allowed me to fully explore my own artistic ideas, whilst not having to worry about someone else's schedule.

Overall I feel that we worked really well together as a group and were able to create a good continuity sequence, which fitted to our brief.
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2. How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try to take into account?

We started off with our brief to make a short sequence involving filming and editing someone opening a door, crossing a room, and exchanging a few lines of dialogue with another person in the room. From this we made some brief notes, on story, and a preliminary script.

Our original notes

We used our blank notes to then create a storyboard for our sequence. This was really useful, as it allowed us to play with the order of shots, and gave us an idea of how it would all fit together. We were also able to do a recky of the locations, and block out our shots. On the storyboard we were also able to see the different set-ups we needed, and were able to create a shoot-order taking into account our actors and locations.

Our storyboard with shoot order.

When planning our shots we also took into account the main continuity theories. We made sure to include the 30 degree rule by zooming in when filming from the same angle to avoid jump cuts, the 180 degree rule by not crossing the line between our actors especially when using shot-reverse-shot, match-on-action by filming everything from each set-up allowing a smooth narrative flow, and shot-reverse-shot which was useful when filming the conversation. We also used the classic narrative pattern, by splitting our shoot board into three sections, beginning, middle and end.

Overall I feel that our planning was very successful and we worked well together as a group to create a good video for our prelim.

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

This is a table showing all the equipment we used for our continuity sequence.

Equipment	Evidence	Pros and Cons
Cannon Legria HFG 30 Camera		The camera was good, as it shot in high definition, and was very easy to use and easy to control. It focused well, and could detach from the tripod, allowing us more low angle and close up shots. This was probably our most usefull piece of equipment as we used it to film and view all of our shots.
Cannon DM-100 Microphone and Headphones		The microphone and headset allowed us to hear the sound that would be in our shot, and we used it to be able to check the volume of sounds. Worked well, and picked up our voices well. However, it would have been nice to just detach it, and leave it in one place, as the volume of our voices kept changing, and was a problem during editing.
Libec TH-650 HD Tripod		The tripod was really useful, as it enabled us to easily get pans and tilts. The legs also extended easily so that you can get a range of heights, whilst using the spirit level to keep it level. We used the tripod to film almost all our shots, as it gave the camera a firm position.
Adobe Premiere Pro		This was an extremely useful bit of software that we used to edit. The different video and audio tracks allowed us to do multi-track editing. We were also able to see all our takes in one place, and edit them down to a general length of time, before we edited them more closely.

All the equipment we used was really useful, and was able to let us fulfill our brief, and realize our artistic ideas.
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4. What factors did you have to take into account when planning shooting and editing.

We encountered a few problems when filming and editing that we had to work around and that caused us to have to rethink some of our ideas.

The main factors that affected our planning, shooting and editing processes were the time restrictions put on us in the brief. This meant that we only had an hour to plan, and an hour to shoot. This was our major challenge, as there is only so much you can shoot in an hour. We also had the limitation of location and everything that comes when shooting in a school. Such as avoiding the bell or trying to not get any of the outside noises in (like other pupils). Shooting in the classroom had its own limitations as, even though we had lots of room and a wide area to film in, we also had to take into account the furniture as shooting in an overtly school setting also affected what story we could do believably. This is one of the reasons we chose to do a teacher, teacher conversation. Since we were filming at the same time as group 4 we also had to arrange with them when we would both use the corridor for filming. This affected our shoot order, but wasn't that big an issue in the long run.

I feel that we worked well at countering the problems we were faced with, and feel that without some of these restrictions our film wouldn't be what it is, as they lead us to think more deeply into what we were shooting and what the story should be.
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5. How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently?

I feel that our sequence was overall very successful at meeting the brief, as we created a sequence of someone opening a door, walking across a room and having a short conversation, whilst adhering to the three continuity theories we were told to use, shot-reverse-shot, match-on-action, the 180 degree rule, and also using continuity editing techniques.

I was really pleased with how some of the shots turned out using match-on-action (like the one below). I felt like I was really able to create a smooth transition between the shots, which helped to stimulate a sense of narrative flow. I also felt that the sound bridges in my sequence really helped to make the sequence seem less jumpy, and flow well. The fact that some of the sound was a bit dodgy was also counter balanced by the fact that we filmed the lines from different locations, so we could use the audio from different shots to make things more smooth.


I was also quite pleased with our use of shot-reverse-shot in the conversation, as I felt it created a good sense of narrative flow, and helped the conversation to not seem too jumpy. However at one point it could have been better, as a shot of Mr Johnson seemed slightly cut off by the next shot of Mr Spatula (below).


We adhered to the 180 degree rule by always keeping to the left of Mr Johnson, and also the right of Mr Spatula, this worked well at showing the direction of movement and conversation between both characters, and I felt this worked well.

In Hindsight, I would have got rid of the third shot, and just have Mr Spatula walk past the door in shot 2 (sequence shown below). This is because the sequence just gets a bit too prolonged, with the audience expecting something to happen in shot 2, but nothing actually happening.


Another problem I would like to have dealt with is the change in my eye positions in the close ups, as they don't match all the way through the sequence, and can make it feel slightly jumpy and ill thought out.

My original line of sight.

My line of sight later on in the sequence.

However overall I am really pleased with the way my sequence turned out, and think it was successful in meeting the demands of the brief.



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

I feel that throughout this task we have all been able to get a better understanding of how continuity filming really is.

Doing this project has really put into perspective how much work is going to go into our main project this year, of making the opening 2 minutes of our own fictional film. It has given us an idea on the time we will need to shoot, as this sequence wasn't even one minute, but the main one has to be 2 minutes long. This shows that we will need over twice the amount of time we filmed just for the filming alone. Also in our main project there will be much more things to consider when planning, such as much larger locations to deal with, genre, story and much more specific costumes and sets. It has also taught us the necessity to film everything from each position, just so that you are able to create good transitions and narrative flow between shots. This project was essentially a mini-version of our film opening project, and it allowed us to see what we could do better next time. Like line of sights in close ups, and making sure all shots are used to their full potential, and that none are wasted.

In conclusion I am really pleased with how my Preliminary exercise has turned out, and I feel that I am now much more confident in the run-up to our main project this year.
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