Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (continuity editing), what do you feel

you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

In this short video I will be look at how I

progressed from my prelim task to the

opening sequence. There are 7 things

that I improved on. They are:

• Match-on-action

• Lighting

• Variety of shots

• Mise-en-scene

• Audio

• Focus pull

• Camera work

• Colour correction

In our prelim our use of match on

action was very poor. We used it to film

the character Drew opening the door

to get into Dons office. However we

focused on the door knob for far to

long and overall it took Drew to much

time to open the door.

Therefore in our opening sequence we

learnt from this and our match on

action was much better. We sped it up

to create verisimilitude. The timing of

the shots put together were perfect so

overall looked much better than the

prelim match on action.

In our prelim task we used professional

lighting in the green screen room at

school. This allowed us to remove the

any shadows as we wanted to use film

noir for the majority of the video.

However, in our opening sequence we

did not film in school so therefore didn’t

have the opportunity to use the

professional lights. We had to rely on

natural light in and outside the house.

On one of the days we were meant to

refilm we couldn’t as it was much darker

outside than the shots we had taken the

week before. However this wasn’t a

huge problem as we just refilmed two

days later instead. We the used colour

correction on Adobe Premier to make it

look light or darker.

In our prelim task I wasn’t happy with the

variety of shots. Although we did use high

and low angle shots, the majority were just

mid shots. This made the prelim a little

boring.

Therefore we made sure in our opening

sequence we used a lot of different shots

and camera angles. This makes it more

interesting for the audience. For example

we used a wide shot when the burglar

was walking to the house, and used shot

match on action to reveal the number the

policeman found.

Mise en scene was not very good in our

prelim. Although we tried to make it as

realistic as possible, it was hard to film a

film noir scene in a school with

technology such as computers. In some

shot there were computers in the

background which gives it away that it

wasn’t filmed in the 1950’s, however we

did the best we could with the location

we had available.

Whereas in our opening sequence we

made sure everything was right and that

items that shouldn’t be on view were

hidden. For example in one of our shots

you could see the tripod in the

background, so as we edited our rough

cut, we noticed this and was able to

refilm it.

In my audience feedback from our prelim we

found that our audio (the song we used in the

background) was to loud and was therefore

taking over the action.

We made sure in our thriller that any audio used

was the right volume. We did have a loud

sound effect as the murderer appeared over

the burglars shoulder, however this worked to

good effect as it added a lot of tension to the

video.

We did use a focus pull in both our prelim task and

our opening sequence. However in the prelim it

wasn’t really effective as it was a dark scene so

couldn’t really see it. Also it wasn’t really needed.

We just used it as we knew we had to.

On the other hand the focus pull in our thriller

worked well. It revealed the two dead bodies tied

up in the room the burglar walks past. This was a

great way of revealing this to the audience, adding

a lot of tension. We got some good audience

feedback about that shot.

Lastly some of the camera work in our

prelim was not up to the standard it

should have been. We did not use the

tripod as much as we should have done.

This meant that some of the shots we

shaky, ruining the verisimilitude of the

scene.

In our opening sequence we used he

tripod in the majority of our shots,

including the panning shot of the burglar

walking. There was however one shot

when Will had to walk with the camera in

his hands to follow the detective walking

into the room to see the body. This took a

couple of shots as some of them were

shaky. However we learnt the importance

of a still, smooth shot from our prelim and

therefore reflimed until we got it right.