Preliminary Task

The brief of out Preliminary Task was 'A continuity task involving 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. The task should demonstrate match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.'

Planning: Before we storyboarded we had a short discussion on what the dialogue would be about. We settled quickly on someone not doing their homework. Doing the storyboard was simple enough as we already knew they had to walk in a door and sit down. We decided what shots to take, then the dialogue we came up with was simple enough. The entire planning stage was relatively easy, and it seems like you have to agree on things quickly with your team to not use up time and decide on a shot that appeases all members.

Production: We found our location. The door and table were already set up like we imagined in our storyboard, so we got straight into it. We assigned the roles of directors/cameramen and actors, however we all had ideas for directing. We filmed shots for a while so we had enough content to edit with. We would film the same scene from different angles to achieve match on action. After doing the dialogue scene, we realised it would be better if everyone was happy with the dialogue written, and the actors knew well what they were going to say. Also, when setting up the camera we debated what looks best and what would work. Next time every member of the group should know the storyboard

Post Production: One member of our group took charge of the editing, and he was good and quick at it. The rest of us suggested what shots to put where or what to use and not to use. We seemed to get through the editing with speed, without compromising the quality of the clip. Finishing the editing of shots early left us some time to add in score and sound effects, and titles. This helped us to see how to find these things and how to fit it to a shot best. Seeing our group member edit helped me to learn things I didn't already know you could, and tips and tricks to becoming a quicker editor.

Preliminary Task

Prelim Task

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4V6AlabvG0


The preliminary task was a very useful bit of experience in filming and editing as it was the first instance where i was put in a situation where we had to film something according to a script and also arrange all the actors and experience for myself how the whole process of filming and editing works. I was also fortunate because one of the members of my group Steven had previous experience so he eased us into how were supposed to execute our preliminary task, i feel that because we had the experience of doing it ourselves we learnt a lot more than if we would have just done theory on it. Our task required us to film, using several shots, a sequence of someone coming into a room and having a shot reverse shot conversation with someone else. In this regard we demonstrate completion of the task. However there were certain problems with the filming process and also somethings that went well, in the pre production, production and post production.

Pre production.
When we started planning our idea for our preliminary task we instantly met several issues for example two members of our group wanted to do the plan their own way and it just fell apart and the cooperation was relatively low at first, however this shifted slowly, but we did end up writing two separate storyboards. There wasn't any trouble picking in between the two so when we finished our storyboards we were all relatively happy about the content. We all had input into what to include and what not to, however some more than others. The storyboard was relatively easy but at points time consuming having to describe every little detail. We encountered one problem about the quality of drawings, our group didnt want to spend to long making each figuire anatomically correct and virtually identical so we drew quick sketches which weren't enough to convey our message, also on our shot reverse shot we had difficulties understanding ourselves how it was supposed to look like on the story board.

Production.
One down side of when we started the production process was that it was the lesson after we had planned it so we had to spend some time refreshing our minds on what had happened earlier, which wasnt really a significant downside however did slow us down. The biggest problem that we actually encountered was the fact that some things where just really funny and awkward for the actors at first so we ended up bursting into laughter for long periods of time instead of working on our project. Next we had the problem of our diallogue between the two characters we wanted to change it from we had on the story board because in real life it sounded wrong and incoherent. The rest was a rather educational process that we all benefited from, including filming many shots over and over to get the perfect clip, changing our camera angle to see the character(s) from a different perspective and the directing of the character(s).

Post Production.
Most of the post production was done by Steven as he said he knew what to do, but we all had feedback on what kind of edits to include or what kind of sound effects/ score to play on top. We all learned how to edit things quickly and effectively to make it appear as if the edits are smooth and coherent, because if you can see the edits thens its bad editing. We saw all the different kinds of effects that are possible for example split clip, slow motion, adding a freeze frame, changing the colours, adding title screens, these and many more. There were some points where we got a bit to ahead of ourselves and edited the clips to roughly and so they seemed jagged and in-continuous but to resolve this we just spent extra time on those clips altering them and adjusting them until they flew more coherently. There was a section with the door creaking shut in 3 different shots that made it seem like the door kept almost closing but not quite, we solved this by cutting out large sections of some of our clips and also slowing some down.
We ended up adding a whole section at the end where funny things in general happened, our bloopers lasted for about 1 minute as we had so much footage that we wanted to include on there, we added extra sound effects and score to enhance the impact of our video.
Over all the post production was good because we learnt how to use it, but not as much as we could have if we all had a go individually at editing it.

Final product.
I would say that for the amount of effort that we put in the result was rather high, however it is no west end Oscar winning piece of work, but it reflects our individual efforts as a group instead of individually to create something smooth enough to be watched. There are some delays at some points but not that visible, more noticable is the random music and sound effects that we put in, the majority are effective and work well but there are 2 or 3 that are a bit random and dont quite fit in with the rest. One part mistake of the editing is that we got to many shots of Andy saying thanks. Over all though im happy about the final product, for the amount of work we put in its exceptional.