Evaluation Part 7

From prelims to the final product - what has been learnt. Many technical aspects of our production needed to be addressed. The 180 degree rule is very important, as breaking it can result in confusing the audience and making the action seem unnatural and jumpy. In our final product we did not break this rule, yet in the prelim we did jump over the wrong shoulders - something that was picked up on and feedback from the prelim helped us to make sure we didn't do anything like that in the proper production. For shot reverse shots - this is where, in the prelim, we broke the 180 degree rule, so in the final production, we were sure not to do the same. As there was not much direct diaglogue between characters, the main shot example of this is when I shout "It's cigarettes!" and the others look around - we made sure to have an eyeline match so that it matched up nicely and also they we in the same spot as they had been before - no continuity error. Match on action is very difficult to get, but with careful editing together, we obtained a good flowing opening, where actions and reactions happened effectively, and the sample audience didn't pick up on anything out for being unnatural.

Evaluation Part 6

Camera/Tripod: We have used a video camera that the school provided us with to do the filming of all of our shots for our two-minute production. The camera was generally very easy to use and we found the quality of the filming to be very good. It was very useful for us to rewind bits that we filmed to watch them back before shooting the next shot. Also, the quality of sound that it picked up on was good, although it was almost too good - wind did become an issue for some shots, yet we got around this by dubbing over the top and bringing down the sound level of the clip (on iMovie). For the tripod, we found it necessary to use for the normal shots, yet we did not need to use it for the point-of-view shot (which was from my eyeline). It is always useful to have a steady camera throughout - and a piece of equipment like the tripod is essential in production.

iMovie: For editing our shots together, we used the Apple software iMovie. In general, this was successful, as we could add transition fades to shots, and editing them - for example, the zoomed p-o-v shot onto the packet of cigarettes - we used iMovie to change the colour of the shot to red, and to speed it up to make it look better and less jerked. Also, it allowed us to put on the credits onto the shots, giving us a lot of options to choose from.

Garageband: To create an original soundtrack to accompany our film, we used this software to get the wide variety of musical sounds that otherwise we would not have access to. Also, because we could do this all on the Apple Mac, it was easy to transfer out soundtrack onto the iMovie project. Of course, we had a few attempts at creating soundtracks, but in the end, I think we have a perfect scoring to our opening two minute production.

Youtube: For this project, we have use youtube an incredible amount. To begin with, we used it to find clips for research purposes, although that did become difficult as certain videos had been removed because of copyright enfringements. Youtube has also been very useful for us to exhibit our prelim tasks and also our promos and rough/definitive cuts of our film.