Madeleine Brown
Preliminary Media Evaluation
This is my media evaluation of my preliminary work, 'The Deal' that i have uploaded to my youtube channel. I did this preliminary piece of film to help get used to using the camera I would be using for my actual film opening, as well as the editing software, 'Final Cut'.
I'm doing this evaluation so that I can figure out my strength and weaknesses within planning, filming and editing to improve them for my film opening.
The Brief
Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.
I feel as though against the brief my work does all it needs to: it does show one of my characters played by George Bloor knocking on the door, then opening and proceeding through to sit on a chair across from my second character played by Liam Kelk, They then exchange some lines then George leaves the room.
Their is a display of match on action when George enters through the door...
At 0:09
At 0:10
I feel as even though I added the match on action it felt quite clunky and stood out a bit too much for the scene, this can be improved with practice using this type of shot as this was my first time trying to put these into actual scenes with people. This shot does help fulfill the brief even if it isn't as smooth as i would have liked.
Between 0:14 and 0:34 I show use of the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot to show the two characters talking and show that they are across from each other within the scene which helps the audience to establish the surrounding of the shot. I used an over the shoulder shot for my shot reverse shot to show that they are talking to each other. I found that keeping the camera in one place and letting one of my characters go through all of their lines and then after all their lines had been said swap it around to the other characters point and go through all of their lines, this helped me keep continuity within the scene as the camera isn't moving between each line that they exchange.
Whilst editing on 'Final Cut' I was able to learn and practice ways of cutting parts of my film out, as well as how to add text to the beginning and end of the work, as well as this I found out about the tedious rendering times which I will have to take into consideration when editing my final piece if I am running on a tighter schedule to try and get it finished, especial as this was only 0:37 seconds long and my actual piece has to be around 2 minutes it is going to much longer to render.
During filming I realised that a good detailed storyboard was needed to make sure I didn't miss any important scenes or film a scene in the wrong way, as well as this I found that I would need to have sufficient room for the camera to be when filming, where nobody could easily knock it and make the footage less desirable. However I would need it close enough to be able to operate it, changing the focus moving it during a scene, again using the camera would just need practice with using it and seeing the different things it can do.
If I were to do this task again I would make sure to take shots more than once so that I can have exactly want I want and make editing much easier, I would also make sure that I added all the scenes that I had intended to use during the clip like a close up on the beads to help create an enigma code for the audience. the other shot i would add would be a establishing shot of the area to help the audience understand where the scene is taking place.