EVALUATION QUESTION 7

Looking back on your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product? 


When looking back on my preliminary task I can immediately see what I have learnt and how I have developed my camera skills and technique. I feel I have come very far from October when I filmed my task to having completed my main coursework piece, and fell what I have learnt has made my product to be the best it may be.  


I think one of the main thing I learnt from my preliminary task was not to have any head room. There was a massive gap above Annabelles head so she did not properly fill the frame and there is to much background. As shown in the screen shot below. So I made sure in 'Same Difference' there was no unnecessary head room in all my shots and the actors filled the shot with little background.

In my preliminary task there where some key elements and rule we had to stick to that I learnt. There was 180 degree rule, shot/reverse shot, match on action. These elements I carried through to film my final product, there was one shot that I had to re-shoot because I forgot about the 180 degree rule which I believe is the main element you have to use. 
In my preliminary task I also learnt how to film and use extreme close up shot and mid-shots illustrated in the picture below. I used this to a much wider range in my 2 min film opening 'Same Difference'. 

However even though I learnt these skills of close-ups and mid-shots the way I cut them together in my preliminary task was a bit disjointed. I cut a normal shot strait next to a close-up, this made my task look as if it didn't run smoothly. In my final product I took this into consideration and have used mid-shots to ease my way into extreme close up shots. 
I also learnt how to pan a person walking around or too somewhere. This proved invaluable when filming my final product because i used panning shot a number of times. I learnt you have to follow where your character is going not your character otherwise you may end up chasing the character round the room. this is shown below in my preliminary task: 

I learnt from my preliminary task that organisation is key in the process of filming and editing. In my preliminary task I had to film in on two separate days, so I had to make sure the mise-en-scene was exactly the same and my characters had the same costume and nothing had changed. This I used so often in my final film very much because obviously I could not film it all on one day because I had different locations. I had to make sure my characters where in the right costume and I had to keep an eye on the weather which proved to be a problem. My filming outside had to be suspended a number of times because my previous filming was on a sunny day and this is quite rare in england, and a number of time it had rained when it shouldn't have.


so from my preliminary task to my main coursework piece, I feel that I have learnt an awful lot from editing my film to the way I film and learnt from the mistakes I made. This has really helped me with my final coursework piece and proved a real benefit.