Preliminary Self-Evaluation

Preliminary self-evaluation

1)      I felt we completed the three objectives we were given (match on action, 180^o rule and shot-reverse-shot) very well and the whole video flowed very well. The editing, upon watching, feels very natural and not disjointed. I felt we had a wide variety of shot types, including mid shots, POV shots, close-ups and over-the-shoulder shots) and they were used effectively to allow the video to feel like it shows the viewer everything they need to know to understand the story. We feared the video may be too short with the footage we shot, but through re-shoots and clever editing we made it a good length. The actors we used to be in the video took their parts seriously and so we could get through the filming of scenes very quickly. The pacing of the video feels natural as if the conversation is actually happening and no scenes are missing or added unnecessarily.

 

2)      One part of the video I felt went well was the opening few shots of Matt walking towards the door, putting his hand on the handle, opening it, then walking through from the other side. We had planned how the scene would play out in the two storyboards we had made previously and so we knew exactly what angles to film at once we were on location. The whole match-on-action scene plays out so well partly because we edited it so well; we spent a few minutes cutting fractions of seconds off each time to achieve perfect continuity.

 

3)      One of the issues we had was we had to film some new scenes on a different day. This meant that we had to make sure the actors on screen wore the same clothes as they did on the original shoot to ensure the video is continuous throughout. We had a problem in one scene were Matt plays the guitar; as he wore a different shirt on both days. To avoid this, we set up a low-angle shot which focused on the guitar and below, so his shirt was not visible. We also had an issue with the size of the room we filmed in. This caused problems as it was difficult to manoeuvre the tripod into tight spaces, and sometimes this required us to move objects to accommodate the space. This itself caused mise-en-scene problems, as occasionally, we had framing issues and we had to make sure objects in the background remained in the same place. On the first day of filming, there was a drama class going on next door, and on the second, there was not. This was an issue as noise from the class could be heard on the footage. We solved this by turning down the audio on the scenes where background audio could be heard.

 

 

4)      We have gained the skills of shot composition, the importance of continuity, how to use the camera and the tripod, and how to edit our footage on iMovie (and what it is and isn’t capable of) and then how to burn the finished video onto a disc using iDVD.

 

5)      As a result of this knowledge, next time we will understand better what the camera can see, as we felt that the footage was not zoomed in enough as there was too much background showing and so the action was hard to focus on. We will plan our time better in order to film what we need in one day, which negates the need for the actors we use to wear the same clothes. We will also film more cutaways as when we edited the video down, there were some awkward transitions that could be made less awkward with a cutaway shot. 

 

 

 

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