Preliminary Task Evaluation

Our preliminary task was to film a brief, one minute opening to a thriller film that consisted of somebody walking down a corridor into a room and having a short dialogue. The task was specifically to make an opening to a thriller and so this had to contain all the aspects that you would expect from a thriller. Our task had to demonstrate the 180 degree rule, match on action, shot reverse shot and continuity.

I believe our camera work was reasonably good for a first attempt however there were some aspects of it that could be improved. We had a range of shots throughout the film clip but there were still a few more that we could of used and if we has used them it could have made our clip a little more interesting and could have helped to build the tension a bit more. The composition and framing of our shots was pretty good as they clearly showed the most important objects and parts at all times but at the same time they were not empty (showing only one thing). We had a couple of shots where the camera was moving, these were quite good and had good effect of moving with the character but they were very difficult to keep steady and so the steadiness of the shots was greatly reduced. A camera dolly would have perhaps been ideal to shoot these shots however there was not one available at the time so we had to make do with the equipment we had.

After we had finished shooting our clip we put all the shots together on iMovie and began to edit them. The editing allowed us to add effects to the shots we had, delete parts that were of poor quality and allowed us to enhance the sound and music on our clip. We managed to stick to the 180 degree rule throughout, used match on action, shot reverse shot all the time and nearly managed to keep the continuity rate throughout however there was one occasion where this was not as smooth as it could have been. On iMovie we managed to add titles, credits and a production logo. This gave a good effect to our movie and made it look a lot more professional. The colour changes of some of the shots (colour to black and white) also added to the tension building and matched what we were trying to do. The transitions that we did also helped this.

We did not use lighting as much as we should have done throughout this task. The lighting that we did use was continuous though so it made it look like the clip was continuous shots throughout. This is definitely an area for improvement as lighting could really enhance our production and make it look a lot more professional if we use it in the correct way.

I have learnt a lot of things while creating this short video clip. I can now see the importance of good planning and being organised. I have learnt the best way to produce a number of different shots and some technical skills on the Macs through iMovie that will help me to produce an effective thriller film for the real task. Although there is still a lot to improve I thought that this preliminary task was very useful in showing me how to do things and developed some useful skills for me.