Pio George - Evaluation of Preliminary Task

Evaluation of Preliminary Task

For the preliminary task we had to film a small clip showing a person walking across a room, opening a door, sitting down in a chair opposite another character and having a conversation which had to include two sentences from each character. The task required us to include the 180° rule and use shot reverse shot, it also required us to show continuity editing. Before the filming began, we only had a small amount of time to plan our task as we had a small amount of time to film and our group could only film in the school.

Also, we had to consider who would be in the short film and who would be doing the camera work. We had used the Sixth Form block as an area to film the material we needed. We decided that Ben and I will act and Giordano and Morgan will do the camera work. Our group used a door in the sixth form block and an area just outside the door to film, there is also a corridor just before the door which was used to film me walking down to the door and pushing it open. Our first idea, was that I would walk down the corridor and set an atmosphere of tension and then have a comical conversation. As the filming went on, we tried a second idea which turned into a chewing gum advert and decided to use it as the final product for our short film.

When filming we used the 180° rule and used shot reverse shot. Shot reverse shot is when a shot is being filmed over the shoulder of the characters who are involved in a conversation with each other. This allows the audience to see the perspective of each character and it allows them to 'be in the shoes' of the character. The camera was filmed over me to get the reactions from Ben, after Ben finished talking the same was done to get my reactions. This can be seen when I give Ben the gum and he says 'Thanks man.' The 180° was used give a sense of verisimilitude as, it allows the audience to be in the clip, as if they are watching the scene unfold.

Finally, when the filming process was finished, most of our time was spent on editing the short film. Our group used 'Final Cut Pro' editing software on the iMacs to edit the clip. We had to pick out and choose which footage we wanted to keep and then delete the footage we didn't use. Also, we inserted text into our clip with the title of the product and our names to make it look like a professional product. A final piece of editing we did was adding in slow motion and sound. For the slow motion we added it at the end to make it took dramatic and it went very well as we added in music to go with it, which created a slightly comical element. The sound that's were used in the clip can be seen when I take out the gum and you can hear the ringing of small bells which created a comical effect.