Preliminary Task Evaluation

Our short film demonstates continuity well through the use of techniques such as: match-on-action, 180 degree rule and shot-reverse-shot.  These techniques allow for the film to be understandable and coherent; thereby the audience can follow what is going on. 

The match-on-action - where the mummy opens and walks through the door - has been edited so that, in each of the 3 shots of the mummy opening the door, its hand is always on the handle in the same place as it was in the last shot - so that it makes the opening of the door, which was filmed in 3 shots from different angles, look as if it flowed smoothly and could have happened in one shot, continuously.

We also made sure the characters were in the same position as they were at the end of the last shot before filming the next shot (e.g the cowboy was always sitting in the same place in each shot, whilst on his phone, on the same side of the table) to ensure the continuity of the film, unless there was to be a jump cut (e.g the mummy walking through the door and then cutting to beside the table).  Also, once the cowboy had removed his eyepiece, we made sure that in every shot after that he was not wearing it and that it was around his neck instead.  By doing these things, the audience knew the shots were in a coherent order which told the story and made sense to them.

You can also see from the above images, that we stuck to the 180 degree rule throughout.  This is very important as if it was not used, the film wouldn't have made much sense and the audience would be very confused as to what is happening.  The 180 degree rule helps to keep a sense of order in a person's mind and makes things flow better.  We demonstrated shot-reverse-shot when the characters were exchanging some dialogue, where we also obeyed the 180 degree rule.  By using shot-reverse-shot, the audience can clearly see who is speaking, as well as the reactions to whatever has been said; and the 180 degree rule enhances that.

I feel that our group worked together fairly well.  As we were a group of 4, we used our time efficiently by splitting into twos to film separate shots, before rejoining again to share and discuss our shots.  This saved alot of time and the whole piece was completed in and hour and 10 minutes.  However, at first, we were a bit slow to begin - having dressed our actors but also - because it was the first time we'd had to direct and film, we were a bit nervous as to how to do that and use the equipment to the best we possibly could, as we knew exactly what we wanted to do in our heads but were a bit worried as to how it might turn out.  After filming our first shots though, our initial worries were forgotten. 

The only worry we had now was the amount of time we had to film.  Originally, we would have liked for more people to have been actors involved in our production, but, because it had to be filmed at school during school hours, we couldn't find many people who were willing to contribute and had free periods.  This wasn't too much of an issue, however, as we only had two main characters - but I feel it isn't as effective and realistic as it could have been with more actors (e.g the 'party' scene when the cowboy is dancing at the beginning of the film isn't really much of a party - he's dancing by himself).  We had an hour and a half with the actors before they had a lesson, so we were keep to try and get all the shots finished in this time.  We tried to do it so each of our group had a chance to film each shot once, if not more times and have their say on it and we found this worked well.

If we were to film this piece again, I would try and correct the lighting, as anything white looked very bright when we filmed it.  We tried to tone the brightness down, and make it more dull by reducing the constrast, during the editing - and added an 'olden effect' to the film throughout - but it hasn't helped overly.

When we were planning, we thought alot about the storyline, but not so much about where it was set, the costumes or the actors.  To make it more realistic, we could have decorated the room with Halloween decorations and had more actors dressed up as other Halloween creatures.  From the audience's perspective it just looks like a random cowboy dancing around in a school classroom - not a Halloween party, which is what it's supposed to be.

To make our piece look more professional, we added a fading-in from black effect to the beginning shot and a fading-out to black effect on the last shot.  Other than these we didn't use any transitions as we didn't wanted the piece to be continuous and by adding obvious transitions you could easily devastate the continuity.  Therefore, we decided against them.  Also, our film didn't change time periods (into a new day, for example, or even just an hour or so later), where a transition would aid this well - it was all continuous and would have happened one-thing-after-another.  Adding a transition would give the illusion of it being a different time of day or scene and we didn't want that.

By doing this preliminary task, I have learnt how to use the editing software - I'd never used it before.  It gave me the chance to try everything out and experiment; to see what effects worked and what didn't and how to use all the different options before doing the final piece of coursework.  I learnt how to add sound-effects (e.g the gun shot) and overlay music.  When we were editing our short film, we used slow-mo for some shots to make them more intense (e.g when the cowboy is drawing his gun on the mummy) or more comical (e.g the last shot of the mummy walking towards the door).