Evaluation Question 7

7 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Our preliminary exercise was a task to help improve our use of continuity. This involved 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.

When we started on this, we were new to college and hardly knew anyone. Me and Kyle both knew each other from previous forms of education, but Ross was a person who we had only met in college and as such we didn't know each other. This exercise not only served as a way to improve continuity, it was also for developing our team working skills. As none of us had taken a media course before this, we were all lacking experience. The preliminary task also gave us experience and prepared us for the two minute film; such as how to write a script.

While learning about the new rules and shots, we were also learning about the equipment and software that we would use. It served as way to learn on how to improve for the next thing that we were to do. An example of this would be when opening doors. We had to retake the shot because the actor opened the door differently in shots; with the handle and with his hand in the next. We also learned how to fix the mistakes from filming in editing, by covering it up with cuts and such.

I'd say that the thing we took the most from the preliminary exercise was to be a perfectionist, as editing is much harder without good footage. We did this by retaking some shots multiple times to make sure that it would be perfect. For example, in the montage we retook the shot of me taking the hat off of the table multiple times (probably around ten in total). Even though I found that to be quite tedious, I believe that it was worth it. Although we didn't retake all of the shots in the film, most of them were taken at least twice and we got some really good shots from doing this.

I think that I have improved with my filming skills most of all. Before doing this, I had practically no experience with filming (although I had filmed things before). After completing this I felt that I knew much more about it; such as how to reposition the camera while it was still on the tripod and how to change the depth of focus.

From this project I have gained a lot of experience that I could carry over to other areas or future projects. I have learnt a lot of things that have a variety of uses, such as which angle would be the best for a shot. This means that filming wouldn't be as hard as I would know what would be the best option for what I'm doing. I'm satisfied with the end project, but there are a few scenes which could've been redone.