Self Assessment - Preliminary Task - Amy Cass

· Does your film use continuity editing so that the sequence of events are clear and easily understood by the viewer?

Yes our film does use continuity editing which makes everything clear to the viewer. All of the events that happen within our trailer are in the right order so that it's not confusing.

· Have you followed the directions in the brief? (A character opens a door, crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite another character. An exchange of dialogue occurs.)

No we haven't followed the directions in the brief, although we did try to include some form of dialogue within our trailer. When we do our main task this is something we need to insure that we stick to. 

· Have you used match-on-action?

No, match-on-action was something that we didn't include in our video.

· Can you explain what a match-on action involves?

Match on action involves an action starting in shot 1, for example someone holding a door handle, then the action being completed in shot 2, for example the door actually opening. 

· Have you used shot/reverse shot?

Yes we have used shot/reverse shot, we used it to show the lights flickering and then the characters reaction, then the lights again.

· Can you explain what shot/reverse shot involves?

Shot reverse shot involves shot 1 being of one thing, for example one person in the conversation, then shot 2 being of something else, for example of another person in the conversation, then shot 3 having the same person/object in it as shot 1, for example the first person in the conversation again.

· Did you observe the 180-degree rule?
Yes we did, we made sure that the camera was always on one side of the characters and did change sides.

· Can you explain the 180-degree rule?
The 180-degree rule is when you make sure that the camera doesn't cross the imaginary axis, which is a straight line that runs through the scene. This will mean that the characters won't move positions and confuse the audience.

· What role did you play in the making of the preliminary task? (e.g. filming, acting, editing, equipment organisation etc.)

In the making of the preliminary task I helped to film and as a group we all contributed to the editing.

· How would you assess your contribution to the group?

I believe that I have contributed quite a lot to the group because as a group we tried to share out the tasks equally, e.g. when doing the storyboard we split it up and we each had to write about a little bit of it each to insure it would be done and not left down to one person. I think that I didn't help as much as I should have throughout the filming but I made up for it throughout the editing when I contributed a lot to the final trailer, this is because I feel that my strengths lie in the editing more than the filming, although we did equally share the tasks.

· What have you learned from the process of making your preliminary film?

I learned that when we're making our main film we need to insure that any music we use in our film is copyright free as this isn't something that we thought of when making our preliminary film. I also learned that we need to insure that we stick to the brief, which is something we didn't do in this task. 

Preliminary Task- Self Assessment (Ruhela Begum) 

Does your film use continuity editing so that the sequence of events are clear and easily understood by the viewer?

In our film we have used continuity editing. As we did a trailer we had a lot of editing to do. We made sure our film made sense and ran smoothly by using different transactions from one scene to another and made sure that the transactions worked with our film. We used a lot of transactions that would suit our genre. Our genre was a horror so we used a lot of fade in to black and fade out to black and edited some scenes to make the mood duller to make sure our genre was clear to the audience.   

Have you followed the directions in the brief?

As our film was a trailer we found it hard to follow the brief. Our brief was ‘A character opens a door, crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite another character. An exchange of dialogue occurs’ we did not have someone entering the room or someone sitting opposite another with dialogue. I think this let us down because in our feedback a lot of the class said that the idea of a trailer was interesting but we found it hard to follow the brief and got carried away when filming and editing.  

Have you used match-on-action? 

Unfortunately we did not use match on action in our film.

Can you explain what a match-on action involves?

A match on action is when a perspective of the camera changes during the scene but the scene still flows.

Have you used shot/reverse shot? W

e used shot reverse shot when we filmed a mid-shot of the lights flickering and then a close up to the main characters face and then back to the lights.

Can you explain what shot/reverse shot involves? 

A shot reverse shot is when character 1 is looking at another character and then the camera with show character 2 looking at character 1 and then the camera will go back to character 1. This is normally used within a conversation between people but can also be used in other scenes.

Did you observe the 180-degree rule? 

When we were filming our film we did use the 180-degree rule. We done this by slowly moving the camera around the room to show the scene until it finally reached our actors. Unfortunately when it came to editing there was not a place we could put the 180-dagree rule so it was not used in our final film.   

Can you explain the 180-degree rule? 

This is when you film half, for example if you were to film a room you would only film half of the room as this is 180 degrees.

What role did you play in the making of the preliminary task? (e.g. filming, acting, editing, equipment organisation etc.) 

In our group we shared our roles equally. I did most parts of the camera work and filming when we were filming our film. I also helped our group edit the film as I gave my ideas and thoughts and told them what would work well and we all pitched in ideas.

How would you assess your contribution to the group? 

I believe I contributed a lot in the group. We shared out our roles on what we thought we would enjoy most and where out strong points were. I have had experience filming so I thought it would be a good idea for me to film a lot of the film but my group also helped me when I struggled. I have also edited before so I helped edit our film to. I think I did I good job with the camera shots and making sure our trailer made scene to the audience.  

What have you learned from the process of making your preliminary film? (E.g. skills - teamwork, acting, organisational etc.

From doing this preliminary task I have learnt a lot. Although we did not follow our brief as well as we could I think this has given us time to think about our main task and how we could improve our skills to make sure our main task is a lot better than our preliminary. Even though I have done a lot of editing I learnt new skills and what transactions worked well with different genres of films. I also learn how to convert videos to a file that would suit our blogger which will make us a lot more organised as we can get our videos up to the blog a lot sooner than delaying because we did not know how to put them up. I also learnt how to share roles equally within our group to make sure the work was all set out fairly and how to work well within a team. 

Preliminary film feedback

Preliminary Film

Roles
Director - Jodie Rider
Camerawork - Amy Cass and Ruhela Begum
Editing - All of us equally contributed.