Evaluation question 7

Before we made our final film we did a preliminary task that focused around displaying continuity editing in a short conversation based film. Among the things we were told to keep in consideration was shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.

Shot reverse shot is a film technique where one character is shown to be looking at another character, and then the other character is shown to be looking back at the first character. It is primarily used in conversational scenes and is the most commonly used shot in TV soap programs. We used this in the preliminary task to convey a short discussion but did not find it necessary to use in the final piece.

The shots used in our preliminary were a lot more experimental and risky than the majority of shots in our final movie, for example the rotation shot (as seen right). When making our final film we wanted the atmosphere to be a bit slower and steadier than in our preliminary task so we opted for more straightforward shots. The tracking shot as seen at the beginning of our preliminary task was a good training exercise for the frontal conversation tracking shot in the final movie and the task in general had given us some practice for when  framing our shots the way they appear in our storyboards. This was something else we learnt from the preliminary too, that we would end up cutting or editing some of the shots as they are seen in the storyboard due to different constraints we came across whilst filming.

The preliminary task helped us with something that was very important for our final piece too - continuity editing. Continuity editing is the act of making your films shots flow realistically and believably so that the audience does not get caught up or confused. In our preliminary task this can be observed as we see the girl walks towards the door from one side and then see her enter the room from another, the shot feels natural. Continuity editing is very evident in our final piece also. In one scene in particular our character David is seen walking close up as he is the focus of the shot, but then the shot changes to the focus of Vanessa and David can still be seen walking away in the distance, making the shot continuous and lifelike.

The preliminary task also helped us to form an understanding of how to work all the tools necessary for our final piece. For example, it gave us a chance to work and experiment with the cameras and also to use imovie for the first time, helping us learn how to edit shots and implement music into our videos.
It also helped us with planning our movie.

During the preliminary task we made storyboards to help aid the production of the film. This is a storyboard from our preliminary task. We found that matching the board shot for shot was more difficult than we first imagined so we had to change things around accordingly.







And this is a storyboard from our final piece. As you might be able to see from the image, the final production did not match it completely. Instead the storyboard served as a visual guideline giving us an idea of what it should look like as we updated it and made it better along the way.