Evaluation of Preliminary Task

When starting the task we were given the chance to be creative and experimental, with a scene involving a conversation. Individially we created storyboards, my first storyboard included two people talking with different sounds, lighting, camera movements and transitions. Seeing as it was a preliminary piece and not coursework, it could be simple and accurate. My group collectively together, chose a simple idea of a student and headteacher scenario. Therefore meaning that my idea was put to the back burner in favour of what was to result in a very effective first piece of video footage. We decided on a location and any props we may need, and how it would fit in to the story board we created with a variety of different shots such as; long shots and medium shots, a large space was needed. So we selected a classroom. We went through different ideas for the length of the piece aswell, deciding to make sure every shot ran at the right time with the minimum lenth of timing being 2 seconds and maximum being 20 seconds, there was no unnecessary timing and everything needed such as a person entering a room, sitting down and beginning a conversation was all included in the filming which in its entireity came to 30 seconds. We decided to use the transition of zoom in and zoome out to enable the audience a closer look of the actors faces, throughout the scene. We made sure that as this was not be a lenghty and entirely detailed and defined piece, like the coursework will be, we used different transitions and camera shots, to test how it worked when physically using a video camera and it was a challenge we were all ready to take on. When on location, we quickly learnt to use the tripod and the camera, using the tripod for when steady shots were needed. Which for the preliminary task was needed most of the time. We used a multiple of different camera movements like; match on action, shot/reverse shot and still shots. There was difficulty at first when trying to figure out how shot/ reverse shot would be used manually and how to enable a smooth zoom in and zoom out without adding the effective of shakey ‘Blair-Witch Project’ style filming. We managed to film all these movements over the space of a lesson, which for first time directors I think is an achievement. We spend the rest of our time in the editing suite using the Apple computers, after half an hour of guidance on how to cope with using the advanced material we then were able to edit our simple video, and managed to resolve the unforeseeable ending problem of smooth transitions and camera shots but with the Apple Media area there were ways and means of creating the result we desired. We used transitions to make sure that the end video ran smoothly, and edited out any unwanted scenes then to finish off the piece we used an ending of ‘fade to black’ using a feature with the Apple computer to end our video. We were very speedy in our entire film process, and i think when making the thriller there will need to be more planning, more details and dialogue to be added and more editing meaning that it may not be as speedy as the preliminary piece. From the preliminary piece I will use simular shots, such as; Match on Action and shot reverse shot as they were simple to shoot but looked effective when done properly on screen. With our new found knowledge of the Editing suite also there will more of a chance within making a thriller scene, to use special effects, lighting and sound effects meaning out creative minds can run wild.