Media Evaluation - Question 7

The preliminary task that the group and I had to produce was to film a 30 second - 1 minute conversation of us walking in, sitting down, have a conversation and leave all in one continuous scene. We were also challenged with implementing a close up, panning shot, over the shoulder shot, long shot and a mid shot in our brief.

The group and I learnt to set up the camera and tripod to various different angles to try and make the scene look conventional. This helped us when we came to film the final product because the group and I already knew which camera shots were conventional and which ones we were capable to do due to a lot of trial and error in the preliminary task. The group and I also learnt to use the camera correctly, this being getting the correct settings and not toggling them, which would have made our scene different at time. For example, if we toggled with the brightness or the camera lens it could have affected the scene by making it lighter or darker in some areas, which would have made it unconventional. This was important to do during the preliminary stage because it meant that we knew our way around the camera and its settings so if we did need to toggle something we knew what to do, which saved us a lot of time. However, the group and I also had many problems that we had encountered during the preliminary task, one of them being the tripod. This was an issue for the group and I because it was difficult when we first used it setting up, this was because we had problems keeping the camera steady on it as it was not on properly, which made our shots tilted and uneven which we did not want as it made our shots unconventional. This was very important that we had experienced this difficulty because it meant that we figured out a solution, which was done before the final sequence and saved us a lot of time not struggling to solve this problem when it came to the real sequence.

The preliminary task helped the group and I because it helped us get more used to the equipment before we started to shoot the final production. This was very helpful because id the group and I didn't do this then we would have wasted a lot of time attempting to get used to the equipment while we were filming the final production.

The group and I did many things different form the preliminary task to the main task, one of them being that we re-watched scenes so that we liked what we shot rather than shooting it. This is because if we didn't do this then when we came to editing and didn't like the shots we couldn't retake them because the weather may have differed or the lighting would have changed. We also included diegetic sound such as the suspenseful background music to engage the audience. We also adjusted the frames to perfection so that our final production didn't look choppy like our preliminary task but smooth and pleasing to watch. Overall, Our final production was a lot better in terms of editing and the camera shots and angles we used, this is because we were more experienced and had a lot more time with the equipment the second time round of filming the final production. Also we had a lot more time to fully produce a suspenseful, conventional thriller opening sequence unlike the preliminary task, we only had an hour.