Preliminary Task: Evaluation

I came into the group late and i arrived on the day we started filming so i took no part in planning the preliminary task. This was my first time of making a film and it was a very interesting first experience for me. I quickly learned there is much more to filming than just pressing record and pointing the camera at someone.

During the filming for our preliminary task we used match on action, continuity filming, shot/reaction/shot and exchanging dialogues. To show match on action we filmed the actor walking into a building and then sitting down at a desk. To do this we had to have the camera at different positions and different angles. We used a variety of shots to like a tracking shot, mid shot and extreme close up so we could demonstrate our skills with using a camera. We also used shot/reaction/ shot to show the exchange of dialogue between the two actors.

We did make quite a few mistakes during filming. What i found out later when we edited was that you can do alot about it and its too late to go back and make it better. There were a few shots were someone filming got in the way of another camera. This was due to poor organisation before we pressed record. Firstly the one scene where i noticed a big problem is when actor 1 wakes up actor 2. We used shot/reation/shot to film the characters talking. To do this we used two cameras to film the seperate actors speaking, so we could edit it in later. The main problem is the lighting in the room. In one shot the light was very bright and it was easy to see the actor but in the other shot the second actor is harder to see due to the room being in darkness. The continuity in this scene was quite poor because it made it looked like we were filming on different days. Secondly listening back to it the audio could of been better. In certain scenes we can the same sound on top of each other and at one point you can hear one of the persons filming say something to one of the actors. This was due again to poor organisation during before recording and this is something we need to improve on.

After completing the task i have learnt that you can never have too much footage. It is easy to edit if you have a lot too work with and you can cut out the parts that are not very good, however if you do not do much filming then you dont have a lot to work with and when it comes to the editing you have a much harder job to do.

(James)