Analysis of Preliminary Task

Analysis of Preliminary Task

To show our technical skills in a minor way we had to record a short video that included a:

- match on action
- shot-reverse-shot
- 180 degree rule

We created a 7 frame storyboard for our short video, this enabled us to have a clear set plan for which camera shots we were going to use for each scene, and where we will need to edit sound into the video. We decided that me and John would star in the video, with Mason as camera man.

We set out to record our video with the schools HD camera, it only took us about half an hour to record once we found an empty class room we could use as a set. Unfortunately when we went to upload to footage onto the mac to edit it the HD camera wasn’t working and wouldn’t upload anything, so we had to re-record the material once again. We decided that we would change the location of our video as in our view we could get better material there, but also we had some restraints to where we could record as all of the class rooms were being used, so we decided to record in the toilets. So seems as we changed our location we had to do a new storyboard before we set out to record anything.

After editing out the out-takes we had a final video for our preliminary task, it was only 35 seconds long after editing it all together. The video started with a long shot as the antagonist walked out of a door towards the toilets from behind, and then cut to a long/medium shot looking front on at the antagonist walking to the door, throughout this entire start a piece of non-diegetic music is played, until dialogue starts.

We made our soundtrack on garageband, a programme on the Apple Mac that is used to create music by amateur producers, you don't need to be able to play instruments to create the soundtracks, which was a great advantage as none of our group have musical ability.

Our match on action shot came as the antagonist opened the door to the toilets, we had a shot from one side of the door as he pulled the handle, and then cut to a shot of the other side of the door as the handle went down and the door opened, the diegetic sound of the door opening was amplified. We then used a pan shot as he walks through the toilet towards the protagonist. There was only a few lines of dialogue within the 35 seconds, and they all went fine and didn’t need filming more then once, this is where we used our shot reverse shot between the antagonist and the protagonist. After this exchange of words the antagonist turns around and exits the toilets, as he does so the non-diegetic music starts once again and the picture slowly fades to black.

We edited our footage on final cut express on the Mac's, a piece of footage used even by professionals within the film industrie. With the use of the razor blade tool we could cut out the un-needed footage and delete it, and then fit all of the footage together to achieve continuity editing. With final cut we could also fade the picture down to black using the pen tool creating a gradual slope.

The pen tool was also used when we faded the music down at the end of the video

Our preliminary task was a good way to get a taster of the equipment and software we need to use when making our final piece of AS coursework. It we managed to get all of the specifications within the 35 seconds, so overall it was a success.