Evaluation of Prelim.

The preliminary task was to film and edit the sequence to show a person or two people entering a room and speaking to someone else. The sequence should not break the 180 rule and should also include match on action, varied amount of shot types, reverse shot and continuity.

The camera work in this video I feel is very effective in portraying the paths of two people and showing how they eventually meet. A good example of this would be when the camera is facing the lift the male character, Andy, who is dressed in a shirt and tie proceeds to walk through the doors of the lift. It then cuts to a CCTV video in the lift and shows him walking in and moving his arm to press the button to go up and meet the woman character, Charley. During this scene I feel that I have demonstrated the use of continuity because the audience can easily tell that Andy has just walked in to the lift. Because Andy is also in the same clothing and it also tells the audience that he has just walked into the lift. When I create my thriller intro I will make sure that the clothing of my characters is the same therefore not confusing the audience.

Throughout this sequence I also feel that the camera was quite steady, but at times the characters sometimes walk out of shot or the camera in quite jolty which means when I create my thriller into I will focus more on the steadiness of the camera and also make sure that if my intro does contain characters, they don’t walk out from the view of the audience. On the whole the camera was steady and some of the pan shots were effective when Charley was walking up the stairs because they were smooth which is something I would like to use in my thriller opening therefore I will need to practice using the camera and tripod.

The editing in this sequence is overall smooth and the cut shots from Charley walking up the stairs and Andy in the lift are shown clearly because of the different locations and the speed of the editing. Although most of the editing was good overall I feel that some could have been better, for example the hand over and conversation between Andy and Charley. The conversation between both of them worked will in a sense of shot reverse shot because of the use of over the shoulder shots, which means the audience, could see both characters talking to each other. But on the other hand as the conversation began the camera was quite shaky. This is because we had to use a piece of film that we decided was too shaky but we didn't have time to go out and film again. This has helped me come to the conclusion that when filming my thriller opening I will have to take time and set up the shot properly and not rush into it, therefore getting a better quality piece of film.

After editing the film and watching the finished product over, one of the group members pointed out that we had broken the 180 rule when they were having a conversation. After looking closely at the conversation sequence we came to a conclusion that we had broken the 180 rule but had no time to change it because it was already loaded on to a disk. This has given me the opportunity to think about my thriller opening and how I can plan to make sure that the 180 rule is not broken. I will make sure it is not broken by drawing where the camera is and the layout of my shot before filming and mark out where the camera cannot cross.

When editing the lift scene we felt the CCTV would look and feel a lot more realistic if it was in black and white and has the date and time of the bottom on the screen as all CCTV has. So we used some of the effects on IMovie to re-create the CCTV view. This worked well because of the realistic appearance and also taught me that I could use something like this is my thriller opening.  At the end of our prelim we decided as a group to have a fade away shot to the end credits. This was a good idea because we didn't have much time to think of anything better but when I create my thriller opening I will try to think of a more creative way to show who was involved and what they did.

Because if the day that my group shot the prelim and the amount of windows there were where we were filming, it meant that the lighting was good and the audience could see what was happening and what was in the frame. This is something I will take into grave consideration because if the lighting isn't right for my thriller opening, it could drastically reduce the amount of tension produced by other elements that are included in the opening, e.g. costume and sound track.

When filming my prelim I learnt that the camera is key. This means that I have to take everything into consideration when creating my thriller opening, things like framing and composition I will think about very carefully before shooting. I have also learnt to take a couple of shots of the same scene because although when watched back straight away the audio and steadiness of the camera may seem fine, often when you start to edit on IMovie things become difficult. This is why I will think carefully about what is going on in and around the shot when filming my thriller opening.  

I would like to improve on my editing skills on IMovie because this is one of the most important parts when trying to create a video. But I feel becoming better on IMovie becomes easier with practice and reading the manual that is online. I would also like to improve on my variety of shot types, meaning that I would like to think of more creative ways of showing different parts of my thriller opening. for example, I could use an extreme close up to show a characters reactions to a situation instead of an over the shoulder shot.