Preliminary Filming Task: Evaluation

Preliminary Filming Task Evaluation- 

Please click here to see the final Preliminary Task

Planning:

We decided that we were initially going to plan our Prelim task as a storyboard, ensuring that each of the key features were included. We decided to base our plot on the topic of bullying, with the main characters being a bully and a victim. We stated that this would allow us to make good use of high angle shots to emphasise the victim's innocence and low angle shots to imply the bully's power and dominance. We ensured that our storyboard included the main shots and edits of:

-A character walking, opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down on a chair

-Two characters having a conversation 

-Use of the 180 degree rule

-Shot and Reverse shot editing

-No continuity errors

Prelim Storyboard

Filming:

We chose a few actors and decided to film the task in a school environment, as this is a common area in which bullying occurs. In our initial storyboard ideas, we stated that we were going to have a straight-on, long shot of the victim walking through the door. However, when filming we decided to change the camera angle from being straight-on to at an angle due to reflections on the doors. Overall, I believe we worked very well as team. None of us had done media at GCSE level therefore we had minimal background knowledge from our test shots on filming and how to work the tripods/cameras. We used a variety of long and close-up shot sizes & high and low shot angles in order for us to understand more about them before using them in our final opening sequence.

Problems Encountered: 

We chose to not include the camera panning up on the bully. This is because, due to lack of equipment, it proved very difficult to film without jolted and unsteady movements. Furthermore, many scenes had to be repeatedly shot due to inexperienced actors, which wasted a lot of time which could have been spent filming other shot angles. We also decided that it would be more effective to have the victims eyes at the end of the scene as apposed to the bully. This would allow the audience to understand the distressed facial expression of the victim and allow them to engage and relate to the character more. We also decided to include three bully's instead of just one, in order to highlight the authority of the 'gang'. However, this meant we had to consider the availability of another two characters.

Strengths:

We included all the key points mentioned and correctly used the 180 degree rule. The 180 degree rule states that when characters are being filmed in conversation, the camera must stay on one side of them. We edited the piece quite effectively, and as it was our second time at using the software- managed to complete it in a reasonable length of time. I feel that the action match editing was a strength of our piece as we focused on shots of the book in which the victim was reading was quite successful.

Weaknesses:

We did have a few minimal continuity errors, such as a table with our bags and plans on the table in the background of one shot. Also, we had to carefully edit the shots of the group walking in as at one point, it looked like a character had disappeared. Also, although it was our second time editing, I feel as though we would need to work on our editing skills further before our final piece. 

Next Time:

Ensure that actors are aware of what exactly is happening in each shot and are relatively experienced in order to speed up the process. Also to check that multiple shots are taken  incase of continuity errors.