Preliminary Task Evaluation

Preliminary Filming/Editing Task Evaluation

Planning

We began by brainstorming ideas for our short task. We got the inspiration to incorporate in a cuddly toy somehow from an example video we saw in class of a villain petting a teddy bear. The combined images of evil and teddy bears quickly inspired the idea of a teddy bear thief, and a seemingly harmless transaction shown in a typically criminal way. 

Our Storyboard

Above is pictured the storyboard we worked from. We initially had such a broad range of random ideas to use but no real order for them, so struggled to get started. We found ourselves still planning as the other groups were nearing the end of their storyboards, but then stayed briefly after lesson and were able to complete it quickly. 

We decided the props we would need would be a toy bear and a ribbon to use as a distinguishing feature. As I own a DSLR Nikon camera at home we decided I would bring it in to increase the quality of our filming. We chose to use the opportunity to make our preliminary task funny and cringey, as current ideas for our main project are more serious.

Filming

1)

The opening shot is a two shot of myself and Mindi sitting opposite each other at a table. The scene depicts us discussing the bear and then performing a transaction between the bear and the bag. The shots of the speech use shot-reverse-shot and adhere to the 180 degree rule, however over the shoulder was not used here as we decided to use this in a later scene, to be able to utilise a wider variety of angles. However, as Mindi sits down you can clearly see that the red ribbon that will be used later is sitting on the chair, meaning we need to focus on continuity. 

2)

Where we originally intended to use tracking and a long shot to show Mindi walking through the corridor, we had to change our angle as the corridor wasn't wide enough for us to enable enough of her in the shot. Instead we opted for a midshot of her walking forwards, starting from behind the camera, which then switched to a front view. 

3)

The next scene uses shot-reverse-shot close ups of Mindi and the bear repetitively at increasing speeds to show the build up of tension as she realises what has happened. Although we did plan to use an over the shoulder shot originally, we felt the close ups were more fitting as they were more dramatic. 

An extreme close up of the bear is then used to emphasise the absence of the distinguishing feature - the red ribbon. A similar close up is used in the next scene where the ribbon is present to contrast the two. When filming Mindi running back down the corridor again, we used a handheld camera to indicate her panic.

4)

Match on action of the door opening is used in this scene. We struggled to get a variety of angles of the door opening and found some continuity errors - in one shot where Mindi is pushing the door open someone's head is visible through the window. If given the chance to do the task again, we would have come up with a more varied selection of shots for the match on action as in the end we ended up with only three separate shots of the door. 

We also filmed a lot of overlapping shots which would require a fair bit of editing to make seem smooth.

5)

The door swings open and the shot switches to an extreme close up of the red ribbon tied round the bears neck to show that it's a different bear. This shot, like a couple of others in this scene, is blurry and out of focus. When filming our real task we need to be mindful of what the camera is focused on to avoid this blur. For instance, in the shot below the camera is focused on Mindi's shoulder rather than on me who is talking.

This confrontational scene uses over the shoulder shots to show conversation taking place. When pointing at me, a slightly low angle was also used to imply my character's dominance in the situation. 

6)

Despite planning to use a low angle shot of the bear coming directly towards the camera, it was too hard to estimate where it would land so instead we just filmed it side on, with a very slightly low angle. However, in this shot you can clearly see Zayanah's head in the window which doesn't fit in with the narrative. If redoing the task, we would film it so I was the one dropping it out the window and not filming outside as I was here. 

Another match on action shot was shown here which goes from the bear falling out the window to a high angle shot of it hitting the floor. This is the final shot in the film. 

Editing

The above screenshot shows our full editing timeline. As we had quite a lot of footage, editing took the duration of one lesson and then I stayed behind in a free period to finish it up.

None of us had used Final Cut Pro before, so getting it all set up and importing our footage was slightly difficult at first but once we got going we began to find it was very simple to use. Most of our footage was cropped by dragging the ends of the clips, and some of it by using the blade tool. The Typewriter titles were used at the start and the end as they looked akin to something you may see in thriller film which was the genre our preliminary was loosely based off. 

A 'fade to black' transition was used in the middle to indicate passing of time, and another one right at the end to imply the 'death' of the bear.

For the scene of Mindi running through the corridor and also of the bear falling out the window, slow motion was used. However, as my camera's video quality wasn't professional level, the slow motion effect made the footage choppy and awkward, so it's unlikely we'd use an effect like this in our real task. 

We played around quite a bit with editing the speed of our

footage, and one struggle we faced was setting the right speed for the door opening in the match on action. It was also hard to make the transition from slow motion back to regular speed look smooth and natural, and even at the end I feel it didn't look quite right.

Two different soundtracks were used, and we attempted to fade them into each other slightly by putting the tracks over each other and using the fade handles. The fade handles were also used at the end of the film to fade out the sad music.

I thoroughly enjoyed the filming and editing process, and getting to know the best camera angles and learning the basics of Final Cut Pro. I think what we've learnt from this task will help us greatly when filming our real thing. Finally, here is our finished preliminary task!

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Planning

• ·         During the planning process we looked at previous AS Media preliminary tasks for inspiration, and as a group we liked the spy theme and decided to adapt it.
• ·         With limited time, and having several ideas for a storyline we came up with the idea of having a transaction of goods and money commonly seen in the spy genre. The transaction would involve a fraud and a victim.
• ·         We decided that the props would need to be something that we could easily get hold of. Therefore, we came up with the idea of having a teddy bear, after seeing one being used in a previous AS media preliminary task, and a bag stuffed with a blazer to act as the goods.

Storyboard

Having many different ideas it took us a while to come up with a final idea and we decided other minor details could be decided on the day of filming. Our story board (as seen above) would be used to make sure we knew what we had to do the next day when we started filming. The story board had to be clear, concise and we also added the details of the shots we wanted in each scene. Mindi decided that she would bring in her bear and Xena would bring in her camera.

We came up with the name ‘Taken’ by looking at our storyline, a bear being taken, and making it short so that it would not give away too many details of what the video would be about.

Filming

1. On the day we decided that Xena and Mindi would be the actors and also help to decide where the camera would be set up for each shot. Whilst Zayanah and I filmed each shot and set up the camera.

Using the storyboard we were able to set the scene quickly due to only having a limited time for filming. We originally wanted to start with an establishing shot as drawn on the storyboard however we thought that an over the shoulder shot would be more practical due to the different heights of the tables and chairs. Therefore, we used shot reverse shot. These shots were all within the 180 degree rule. We added in some extra camera angles and speech to make sure the storyline was clear.

2. This shot shows Mindi walking across the corridor. We originally wanted to do a long shot however due to the corridor not being wide enough we were unable to do this so used a middle shot instead. We shot the midshot from the front and behind to give two perspectives.

3. Using several shot-reverse-shots made the scene more dramatic as the realisation of getting a fake bear sinks in. The extreme close up of the bear allows the audience to distinguish between the fake and real bear (different ribbons) later on in the video.

As we liked the tilt used before at the beginning of the video we decided to add in another tilt as Mindi drops the fake bear on the floor and runs off. In addition to this we tried to add in a tracking shot of Mindi running to trial what it would look like if we decided to add it into our final project. We found that it was effective however did not look professional as the camera shook a bit too much.

4. In this scene we used match on action as Mindi opened the door. However, we had some continuity errors as in one shot someone’s head can be seen through the door window. We could have filmed some additional shots of Mindi opening the door as the match on action was not entirely smooth in our final video. We did not include the over the shoulder shot as we thought it would be more dramatic to just show Mindi slamming the door open.

5. Having not used over-the-shoulder shot yet we decided to add it in here to show Mindi and Xena having a conversation. We had some issues with the focus as the camera focused on Mindi’s shoulder instead of Xena. If we could repeat it next time we would make sure it was in focus before we filmed.

     

6. Using a long shot meant we could see the bear falling out of the window. We initially wanted to film the bear falling directly towards the camera but there were bushes beneath the window making it hard to set up the camera there.

Editing

We used Final Cut Pro to edit our final video. None of our group had used this programme before but we were able to get the hang of it and managed to edit the video to how we wanted it. We added music and titles to improve our final piece. We had to cut a few clips to make sure we didn't linger on any bits for too long whilst cutting out any unwanted parts. The end of the video fades to black to show that the bear died after falling from the window. The editing timeline is shown below.

If we could do this again I would have liked to have tried adding different filters or voiceovers. 

This is our finished video:

Evaluating Our Preliminary Task (Taken)

Planning:

When presented with the brief, our group initially struggled to put together a continuous plot that incorporated the points. We watched some of the previous preliminary task videos, and were particularly interested in the idea of a drug deal or other shady exchange. We thought it had good potential for humor, and putting it at table allowed us to fill two of the criteria, a shot of someone sitting down and a dialogue exchange. While no one in our group was particularly good at acting, Xena and Mindi stated they had a small amount of experience. It was decided because of this that they would act in the video, while Hazel and did most of the filming. We would also make sure that Xena and Mindi were in the shot.

The plot of our video is not very detailed, as we had limited time to work on it. This also goes for our storyboard which I had to draft and draw in a very small space of time. We spent most of the hour planning, and then rushed to complete our storyboard. We also only had six panels to fit everything in to.

 We used a teddy bear as the "hostage" in our plot, as it meant we didn't need another actor, added some humour to the situation, and we were able to put a ribbon around its neck to differentiate between the fake bear and the original bear.
For our location we decided to just use any empty classroom.

Filming:

We had an hour to complete the filming. We made it a priority to complete most of the outdoor scenes first so that they could be completed in one session. This is to prevent continuity issues with weather and lighting, and also to avoid the crowds of people that would be in our chosen filming location later in the day. The indoor scenes were filmed in an empty classroom, conveniently next door to our own, and the adjoining corridor.

There was no script, but we had noted roughly what we wanted the characters to say. We mostly improvised or decided on lines a few seconds before filming the shot.

Some of the camera shots were out of focus. Some were shaky due to the tripod mount being very stiff and difficult to move in one smooth motion.

This shot, for example, was not properly focused, making it appear blurry and unprofessional. In future, we should make sure our camera is in focus before filming.

This shot, while not shown in the screencap, was very shaky, detracting from its effect. It would have worked better if we'd adjusted the tripod mount to move more easily.

This was one of the shots that we couldn't fit on the storyboard, but thought the loud noise of Xena grabbing the bag would help increase tension.

Editing:

Whilst I have used video editing software before, none of us were familiar with final cut pro specifically, or how to use macs in general. It was difficult to figure out how to import our videos, and we had some issues with it, but eventually we managed to get everything into Final Cut Pro.

Editing the video down was mostly removing our failed takes of certain shots, and watching carefully and discussing amongst ourselves about where we should cut clips. It was very difficult to do everything within the hour, especially since we'd lost a lot of time trying to import our videos.

In Conclusion:

There were a lot of issues I was not aware we would have until we began filming, such as the focus issues. In future, we will be more careful in our filming.

I would have also have liked to experiment more with speech, such as attempting to do a voice over.

Evaluation of Preliminary Task

Evaluation of Preliminary Task

Planning

During our planning we had a group discussion of what we all wanted to do, in terms of plot line. At first this proved difficult as we all had limited ideas as to the story line of our preliminary, despite having the brief to guide us. However, after we discussed everyone's role in the filming process, and we came to the conclusion that Xena and I would be acting and helping with setting up the camera for various angles, then Hazel and Zayanah would be filming whilst we were acting in frame. 

 

 

 

 Once we decided who was doing what, we were able to establish who were willing to be part of the preliminary we could plan our storyboard around the amount of people acting. Although, we had only one hour to plan so we couldn't plan anything too elaborate, but wanted to incorporate an element of humour. 

    

Planning process 

 

Inspiration: From watching previous year's preliminaries, which included the genre of a thriller and humour as a group we decided that this would be successful.      

 

Location: We decided to wait and see which classroom was going to be empty on the day of the filming, but we established that it would be on the same floor as our classroom as this would be more convenient.  

 

Props: In our storyline we decided to use a toy bear as the focus of the task. I decided that I would bring this prop in and the ribbon for the bear.   

 

Issues during the process: Our main issue during the planning stage was our indecisiveness in the beginning, where we were coming up with ideas for the preliminary task. Once we started planning for our story board (as seen above) other groups had started on their storyboards and we realised we had fallen behind on time, so we worked after lessons but managed to get it done.

 

Improvements: The main thing we need to develop is timing, I discovered that as a group, we are very indecisive even though we do listen to each other's ideas.     

Filming

Fortunately for our group, we started off having a room to ourselves so we could use the whole space.

 

1.

As we didn't have a set script we could improvise the dialogue but keep the essence of the narrative. On our story board we had a list of the camera angles that we could use, so when came down to filming we could see what camera angles looked good. 

 

  In the first scene we didn't do an establishing shot from side on of the table, like we discussed before the filming started, as the table was too low and the top of my head would have been out of the frame.

 

As we were filming we decided to add a few more camera angles to the scene such as close ups and a tilt, which still adhered to the 180 degree rule. 

(close up)

 

(Tilt)

 

This proved to be effective later as we used this for fast paced editing. 

 

2.

 

     Upon the second scene we realised that tracking wasn't possible as the camera shook too much, and the tracking was limited the amount of time I was in frame so we changed this to a medium shot with the camera placed behind me and then a cut to a medium shot in front of me to show me crossing a room. 

 

 

 

     3.



   
In part 3 we managed to follow the plan, however when filming the shot-reverse-shot the camera was slightly out of focus which made the footage a little blurry, so next time when we film we should make sure that the camera is in full focus before filming. 

4.



        Once we got to film our match on action other groups were also filming in the same room so we ended capturing some of the other group's through the window in the door. (As seen below)

  
5.

 Another error we made was not making this scene more detailed as we realised that the last scene and this scene didn't make sense put together so we filmed an additional dialogue. 

 

    When Xena was throwing the bear out the window, it kept getting caught between the gap in the window, so we had to do several retakes, which proved to be a challenge as someone had to go down the two flights of stairs to retrieve the bear.   
5.

 



Once we were on the final scene Xena and I wanted to take on more of the filming so we went outside to film the last scene by ourselves. We realised that the camera wasn't able to tilt all the way up to the window so we moved the camera backwards but this meant that the ground was out of frame, and we tilted the camera downwards we'd also catch another group filming near us.

 

  After we finished filming that day we discovered later that there was a continuity error, Zayanah had been seen in the frame, as Xena and I were filming outside. If we could do it again we would watch all videos back to make sure that there were no mistakes before moving on.  

Editing  

Our finished product:

 

 

 

We had one lesson to do our editing, as our group had not used Final Cut before, so at first we struggled to upload all of our videos. Eventually when we were sorted, we quickly learnt the basics of how to use the software, and our group worked well together to edit our preliminary.

 

 

 

 

Evaluation

Overall we had many challenges such as trying to put all the videos in order and cut them, however once we had done this we were able to go through and play around with speeds and sounds. 

 

 

 

 A problem we had was trying to cut all of parts of the videos that weren't needed and watching it back to make sure it looked good, and then doing all of this within the hour.

 

If we got to do this again, I would have liked to play around with filters to make it similar to an old movie (film noir) so we could consider it for our real editing practical.