Preliminary Task Evaluation

Preliminary Task

When we were assigned to create a short preliminary scene I was excited to start using the cameras and editing equipment as soon as possible. But I was not aware of the preparation before the practical area. We began by going into our groups and brainstorming some ideas such as, where we will film the scene and what the story is behind the conversations exchanged.
Straight away each of us were trying to be as creative as possible, with ideas such as filming in a public toilet, and out on the field. But we settled on the film studio which allowed us to prevent interruptions from other students, lighting and weather. We also decided to film an audition scene, in which I knock on the door, I come in and the casting director asks me what song I am going to sing. We had a clear idea of how the scene would work, so story boarding was straight forward.
When we started filming the shots did not take very long at all, and we had finished filming the whole scene in about half an hour. When I used the camera I was comfortable with what buttons to press and how to zoom as I have previously filmed holiday breaks on my own camcorder at home, so angle changes and positioning was straight forward and trouble free.
By the end of the lesson we had realised that our microphone hadn’t been on, so after we had discussed the matter we decided to film it again, the following week. We decided to change the set and film in a class room, as it provided the same benefits as the studio. Once again this was very straight forward and we were able to stick to the same story board we had prepared at an earlier date.
We were finally aloud to start editing our preliminary scene. This was probably the most technical and mind challenging step that we had to take. Whilst watching the video over, we decided on the shots that we did not want to include in our text. But the hard bit was the exact second that you wanted to ‘cut in’ and where to ‘cut out’ and how to drag them and sequence them together, but after a little while we were able to get used to the buttons that needed to be pressed and how to put the scene together.

As you can see from the video below our scene came to an acceptable standard. I personally liked the establishing shot which was smooth and followed on to the actual scene, instead of just an establishing shot and a cut. I also liked the way in which the door opened and there was an unfocused shot of Lizzy at her desk. However their was a fault with the continuity of sound in the scene, but due to some editing we were able to make it sound natural as the sound continued onto another shot and faded out. In addition, the final area of the scene where the camera zooms into my face, it would have been more professional if we used a non-Diegetic sound instead of Alex singing the tune in the background.