Prelim Evaluation

Tom Trouble

Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?

I worked with Ella, Alice and Alicia. Together to begin with, we began a brainstorm for ideas but quickly agreed on the a narrative. Immediately we wrote a script and mapped out a plan for our shots. Later, Ella and I drew out a storyboard and in the lesson before shooting we all planned our different setups and shoot schedule. Then we filmed: I was directing; Alicia was on camera and Alice and Ella were acting although we did all try and get a go behind the camera. For editing however, I worked only with Alicia, and we worked together cutting the sequence together and sharing the mouse-time.

Shoot schedule

How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try to take into account?

We planned our sequence with scripting, scheduling and storyboarding which proved very useful in keeping track of what was needed in shooting and especially editing. When brainstorming, we picked the idea which had the potential to utilise the most continuity techniques effectively, as it was, afterall, a continuity task. We also tried to incorporate some narrative structure to our film: beginning (Ella revealing her love for Tom Jackson); middle/disruption (Alice telling Ella that Tom Jackson has asked her out) and end (Ella drops the diary in shock) leaving a cliffhanger and some enigma for the audience - will Alice read the diary?

What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?

Me editing

For the shooting we used a Canon DV30 camera and microphone as well as a tripod which worked well for our shots as they were mostly static or required a steady pan. It would have been overly ambitious to shoot manually and the tripod helped keep our framings tight and accurate. To edit, we used Adobe Premiere Pro. We used simple tools like the razor to cut our sequence up and layered alternate shots in different tracks as well as adjusting our audio suitably. Although I have used Premiere Pro before, it was over a year ago, so it was useful to refresh my memory before the final project.

What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?

Our original script

There were several points to consider in the process of generating our film. In planning obviously we had to bear in mind time and setting constraints so we kept the idea short sweet and set in school and in shooting we had to work around the other groups for camera time in the lobby and watch out for technical issues. However the factor most prevalent in our minds was inclusion of continuity techniques. Working out how many techniques we could fit in was important in our planning and then making sure our plans worked logistically in shooting all built up to cutting the sequence together and constructing our parallel edits, eyeline matches etc. as planned. We had to diversify from our storyboard a little for example we had originally planned a shot of Ella in between Alice opening the door and coming into the room, however the match on action without Ella's shot in between worked so well that Alicia and I decided to go with that.

How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently?

Storyboard

Overall I am very pleased with our sequence. Our narrative was simple but effective and allowed us to include several continuity techniques. I thought the parallel editing with Ella writing in her diary and Alice walking was good because it built up anticipation that something was going to happen. We had to film several takes of each shots to make sure we got our continuity techniques right which paid off especially with the eyeline match when Alice comes into the room looking at Ella and Ella looks up at her to greet her. We also used shot reverse shot in the conversation and on some of the shots we trailed Alice's voice on to the shot of Ella's face, which I thought helped the sequence run smoothly. We also had to be careful with the 180 degree rule however we spent time working out if we had the shots from the right angles and ended up with a good conversation scene. There were, however, some changes I would make if I could do it differently. Firstly, when planning, we were convinced that we needed to alternate every shot between Ella and Alice, however, when it came to editing, we realised it worked better with some variation. Also, although we were very careful with our continuity techniques, there was a shot we had to take out because we weren't careful enough with continuity between shots and there was a door opening even though it should have been shutting.

What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?

This task was very useful for learning about continuity techniques. I learnt a lot about planning and shooting bearing these in mind, especially about using angle rules. It was helpful because we actually got to put our knowledge into practice and it was a lot harder than we expected. It was also interesting constructing a sequence with a narrative, which we had not done in media before. I think for the remainder of our foundation coursework, I will put a greater focus on storyboarding, since unlike scripting and shot orders, storyboards actually give you a chance to envision what your sequence will look like edited together, and the task helped me realise how important this is in planning. I will also spend more time on my shoot schedule, as having a really well thought out shoot schedule would have helped us shoot more efficiently.