LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO A FULL PRODUCT?

By Alex Hall

We felt that the behind the back shot in the preliminary task really looked tacky and not one which looked professional at all.It taught us that if we were going to use a similar shot in our later product, maybe a high angle and shorter shot length would work better, which is exactly what you can see in the bottom right picture.

This shot from the preliminary task is a medium long shot, and one that really looks plain and dull, whilst also being shown for a few to many seconds.

After completing our preliminary task and began to work on our real product, we had a look at the task and noticed that the flow and editing of the shots was far to poor

Shots didn’t follow the sequence correctly and in terms of continuity, it really failed to meet the targets of being a brilliantly flowing short sequence. The shots such as these here cut into on another far to quickly meaning the whole thing looked poor.

Because of this task though, I learnt a lot more about the editing techniques. This sequence is disjointed as one moment a man is there then the next he has gone. This is an area we tried hard to improve in the real task, where all our shots flow a lot better and they don’t feel disjointed.

The task really allowed me to improve editing sequences, I found a perfect timing of shots to go with the sequence and better thought out shots.

Real Task continuity example

Preliminary Task continuity example

Another area we wanted to improve our skills in was the use of close up shots.

The preliminary task contains a couple close ups, one which works and one which doesn’t as seen above.

The one that worked was taken into our real task as the preliminary task allowed us to test it and see its effect on the product.

However, because of this the preliminary task also made us aware of shots which don’t work and I feel that because of this task we really learnt a lot about positioning of close up shots and when is a good time to use them, not on a face is an example!The face close up looked poor and didn’t look very professional at all.

Real Task

Real Task

Good Bad

Good

Good

CONCLUSION

• Overall, I feel the preliminary task taught me a lot about timing of shots and the type of shots which work well.

• It was because of the preliminary task that I learnt about how to create a good, well flowing editing sequence. I learnt from what went wrong on the preliminary task.

• The type of shots including close ups in particular were influence by what worked well in the preliminary and what didn’t, and so the preliminary task was hugely important in teaching me what you need in a close up, and that simplicity is important in every single shot.

• I basically learnt not to go overboard with types of shots and so on, keep it simple, using a selection rather than loads.