Preliminary Task Evaluation

For our preliminary task we had to film a short sequence of shots that has a narrative and contained these things: 

• A character opening a door
• A character crossing a room
• A character sitting down opposite another character and having a brief dialogue ( or some sort of communication/interaction between the characters.
• Match on match action
• A shot reverse shot 
• Keeping to the 180 degree rule

With our preliminary task we created a western style narrative where it went from one character to another getting ready for a big Mexican standoff between them all. I feel that the narrative we created with our storyboards went well with the bits of camerawork/events we had to include (the ones above). When completing these events we used varying camera shots to show that we can use a whole range of shots that compliment the events perfectly. With the character opening the door we used mid shots to show the character walking towards/across the room to the door and a close up on his hand on the handle when opening the door, showing the event clearly, also the shots where steady due to the use of a tripod. The interaction between the characters i feel went quite well shot wise by using a long shot to show all 3 of our bodies and all of us in frame in powerful stances showing our authority in the standoff clearly and creating a good narrative and steady shots. The continuity between shots were almost perfect especially the use of a graphic match between scenes of the door being forcefully pushed open from one character to another. All of the characters separately come together flawlessly complimenting the continuity. Also we kept tightly to keeping with the 180 degree rule and we believe we did.

During the filming of the task the one thing we found the hardest was keeping all of the shots steady, as in one of the shots Kyle and Aaron were walking and the camera had to follow them and to do this we had to hold the camera by hand and not by tripod, this resulting in the shots being a little jerky and not that steady deducing from the narrative and skill. To stop this from happening in the future we will practice more on using the camera more steadily and using a tripod more efficiently. Also although there was interaction between characters we feel that maybe it was too little and that we should use more in our final production and finally we used very little different transitions which we feel could have been more differentiated to give it a better feel. 

From doing this preliminary task we have learnt what makes a good opening scene and what we maybe should include in our final production and what rules we should follow such as keeping to the 180 degree rule. As well as this we have gained knowledge and skills of using tripods and actually using the camera itself properly to get the right shots themselves. Furthermore we have also gained knowledge of how to use I movie and how to edit our clips to make a good opening scene and narrative what will be greatly used in the editing of our final production, this knowledge making it easier to use when it comes to editing as we have already had a hands on experience on the software before.