Evaluation activity 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Having watched our preliminary task

I think that we have progressed as in this clip, it seems quite jumpy and also the sound isn't all that clear. Once we learnt how to increase the volume of the dialogue in our two minutes we found that it was easier to hear. Unfortunately, we also made the sound a little too loud in the opening two minutes so it also sounded quite fuzzy. We also didn't include a range of shots in this footage which I think we successfully done in our opening two minutes.

However, in this footage, I think the camera was a lot more stable because we made sure we held the camera completely still whereas in the opening two minutes, our clip contained moments where the footage was really shaky. This can be resolved next year by using a tripod.

The lighting in this footage is quite dull whereas in our film it was much brighter which also conforms to the conventions of a romance film. We found that by having a brighter light meant that it was clearer to see the characters. However, in some areas the light was too bright and made the footage look blurry. This can be resolved next year by making sure that the lighting is suitable before recording as if we done this we would not have the harsh lights in the background. It would also mean that we would not have to re-film any points of our film, potentially creating more jump cuts. These would become more obvious because the lighting between two shots would change. 

I feel that we have both progressed far from what we were first producing. I think that what we were producing at the start of this course was more jumpy and not as stable as some of the shots which we have in our film. There is only one particular part in our film that is very shaky. We decided that by walking with the character the audience would understand more about the character, however we did not think of the consequences of the shaky footage. If we had used a tripod it would have improved the footage from the start. Also, the camera which we used in our preliminary task was a better quality as the one which we used for our actual film was an older version. We thought that because we already had a camera that going to buy another one would be not be necessary but in actual fact, it would have made the quality of our film better. We would have also made sure that the characters were not shouting to be heard as this made the sound become harsh and in the preliminary task, the sound was much better. However, the overall two minute footage which we created is something that we think we have achieved from progressing over the period of the course. 

We have also included some of the different types of editing techniques in our film which we also used in our preliminary task. We used shot reverse shot, match on action and also tried to conform to the 180 degree rule but in our actual film we ended up breaking this in one part. As the characters were leaving the common room we were one side of them and as they were outside the common room, the camera was on the other side. We did not notice this until we watched it back after editing the film. I think that because we successfully completed the preliminary task we were able to use the range of techniques in our film to make it more professional and also to make it look a better quality

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