Preliminary Task Evaluation

Match on Action

Our preliminary task exhibits continuity editing well. This is because continuity editing involves using several different techniques like match-on-action, the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot which make it easier for the audience to follow the media text. We put all of the techniques above in our short film to get the highest mark that we could for it. Examples of these are when we used match-on-action when the male character in our piece opens a door to walk into a corridor. By using doing this we are able to put two shots together in order to make the movements of the characters in the shot look smoother as we moved from one shot the other. Further evidence of us using the editing techniques above is that we used a shot-reverse-shot during the conversation at the beginning of the film between the male and the female characters. This is used to show the audience that the male character is in-charge as the shot-reverse-shot goes from him to the female character and back to him again. We also used the 180 degree rule throughout our media text to ensure that the audience found it easy to follow.




Screen-grab from our preliminary task

During the filming and editing of our film, there were a few minor disagreements about where props should be whilst filming, but we did communicate and listen to each other’s ideas very well throughout the making of our piece and we made sure that everybody had something to do. However the editing of our piece ran smoothly in my opinion. Despite the few disagreements we had we were all happy pleased with the finished product.



Screen-grab from our preliminary task

If we were to produce the film again, I wouldn't anything to do with the editing as I feel that it turned out very well and it was all well organised, but we would improve on being more concurrent with how we set up our set and we should definitely of been better at getting people to bring consent forms back on time and making sure everybody was available to film at the same time. This is because we had to find different actors and actresses to film as people didn’t bring their consent forms back in and others weren't able to film on the day we needed to. We feel that we planned our film very well and very specifically. We knew where we wanted all of our props in our own minds but we worked around these disagreements and were happy with our finished product in the end.

To edit out work we used iMovie on the Mac. I found the editing being quite simple, this is because we had a bit of a play with iMovie before we started our preliminary task so we didn’t require to learn how to use it after we filmed our preliminary task.

From producing and editing our own film I have learned that producing a film is not as easy as I thought and along with the revolution in editing programmes and camera quality and I believe that if we were to have made this film 10 or 20 years ago it would not have been as good as what we produced because the technology then was not as good as it is today.

Preliminary Task - Shot List

This is the shot list for our preliminary task. It shows which of our two cameras took the shot, what shot is being used, the shot length, the camera movement, the actors in the shot and what editing technigue is visible.

Preliminary Task - Storyboard

Preliminary Task Video

Preliminiary Task - What and Why

Our preliminary task is the opening to a horror movie which is set in a school. It features all your common things that associated with a horror movie such as suspense building music, creepy items and a killer. The plot is built around a cursed hanging doll, which is found by the two teachers in our film opening, and a masked killer who catches those entranced in the doll. We chose a school as the setting for our task because it is a real life place and I personally find horror films which are more realistic, like "Jaws" more scary than fantasy horrors such as "Killer Klowns from Outer Space". We chose to have a killer as we believe you can't have a horror movie without a killer.