Preliminary Task: Final product

Evaluation:

The task set was to create a short film about 2 characters. One character was meant to walk into a room, sit down and talk to the other character. We were instructed to demonstrate use of match-on-action and the 180 degree rule. In addition, we had to use a variety of camera shots, angles and movements.

Before we starting filming, we wrote a script. This was easy enough; it took only a few minutes, as the film was meant to be short. This made sure the actors had something to say as opposed to ad-libbing. Then, we had to create a storyboard. We used a storyboarding website for this.  This helped us pre-plan the camera shots/angles and the general way we should film the footage.In addition, it helped us comprehend the pacing of the film. Then, we had to cast our characters. This was difficult, as we had to re-cast after getting some footage (One of the actors developed tonsillitis and was off school when we had planned to film). However, it worked out as another actor was available. Finally, we had to gain permission to use the areas we planned to film in. This was easy as the music staff were cooperative after we explained out intentions to them. This meant we did not have to rearrange the filming location.

The actual filming was not without difficulty. We had originally filmed about 2/3 of the film before one of our actors became ill. Due to time constraints we could not wait for his recovery, and so we had to swap him out for another actor. This led to us re-filming most of the film in about 50 minutes.  This also caused continuity problems; we were unable to reshoot some of the footage we had filmed the day earlier. As such, the priest (Max Ryan) was wearing different outfits in separate takes, damaging the continuity of the film. In addition, the tripod we had received was missing it's foot, so due again to time constraints we opted to simply steady it using other means. This meant the footage was moderately shakier than it could've been, although we were able to edit out the majority of the shaking. In addition, background noise posed a minor issue and caused us to have to perform several takes. The final issue we had with the filming was room constraints. Due to the close nature of the intended room, we were unable to move a piano around to the intended position. This caused us to relocate one of the filming locations to a larger room; as such we had to reshoot even more footage in order to preserve the integrity of the film's continuity.

Editing the film was time-consuming. Both Mr Henton and classmate/collaborator Sam Thomson assisted me with editing (Both have previous experience with using Adobe Premier Pro). The audio was not synched up originally, and as such I spent a large amount of time mixing and clipping the audio to maintain volume and continuity between several takes. In addition, the disjointed nature of the filming made the film experience several continuity errors. The most notable of these is the lighting and clothing. It was impossible to change the clothing errors, but I was able to correct some of the lighting in post-production to make it less noticeable. I was able to use photoshop to produce an image (the establishing shot), and I used chroma-keying to overlay a rain effect. Finally, the task was created in an incorrect aspect ratio/setting; unfortunately, in the original edit, the entire thing was too zoomed in and the shot size was inconsistent at best. To remedy this I had to re-edit the entire thing (however, due to experience I had previously gained editing it the first time, I completed it in a much shorter space of time). I believe the editing as a whole went pretty well, and overall it took about 90 minutes for me to complete.

In conclusion, I believe the Preliminary task was neither great nor terrible. I am unsure if we met the design brief; in some people's eyes, this would not constitute a conversation. However, we showed evidence of us using the 180 degree rule, and match-on-action. I believe the strengths lie in the acting, subject-matter (which gave us freedom to work on a project that was somewhat unique) and the sound mixing. However some of it's weaknesses include continuity and the transitions between sounds, as well as the way we were made to edit (two separate edits of the same film). However I believe the re-editing was a good thing, as it gave us a higher quality product in the long run. Overall I believe the task was reasonably good, as it met the design specification to a decent level.