Prelim Task Evaluation

Our task was to create a short sequence in which a person walks through a door, across a room and sits down across from another character before exchanging a few lines of dialogue. We decided to call ours "Wrodland Mars":

1. Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?

• For this task, I worked with Yadash, Chris, and Jack
• We all worked quite cooperatively on most tasks, splitting them all rather than assigning different people different tasks, discussing most of them, such as the shot list, the script and the  shoot schedule (see picture)
• This worked well as nobody felt as if they were given harder tasks than anybody else
• After discussing every frame, Jack drew the storyboard as he was the most artistic.

2. How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try to take into account?

• We started by brainstorming, which was mostly a verbal process.
• After coming up with our initial idea of a hitman receiving an order, we started to move on to the details- Who was the hit? How would we incorporate a match on action, a shot reverse shot and show use of the 180 degree rule? What would the dialogue be?
• Next we drew up a quick sketch of the media department and put dots at the different shooting locations we could use so that we could then plan things shot by shot (seen left)
• We decided where we would put the opportunities for a match on action, shot reverse shot etc. 
• We wrote up a brief script, and used this to create a shot list, from which we made a storyboard

Our Script

3. What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?

• In planning we used almost no technology, only a camera which we used to take pictures to be used as evidence of our planning
• We used a camcorder when shooting to frame, film and playback our sequence.
• We used a tripod to support the camcorder and help achieve smooth pans
• While filming we experimented with a pag-light for lighting effects, however decided not to use it because it proved ineffective for lighting in the room we were in.
• We used computers in post production, using Adobe Premiere Pro for non-linear editing.

4. What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?

• Timing was important throughout, we had to plan how long we would spend on each shot while planning, and had to try and stick to those timings when filming, and while editing we found ourselves rushed due to the time limit while editing.
• While planning we took what the lighting would be the next day, noting where the sun would be in relation to the windows while shooting, this proved problematic later when we had to change our shooting location as it forced us to rely on a pag-light for our desired lighting effect before deciding to forget about all together.
• While shooting we were very conscious of what it would be like editing, making sure to get spare shots where possible to allow for good match on actions

5.How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently?

• I am extremely pleased with our sequence, I think it flowed and definitely portrayed genre well, giving off a clear sense of spy/thriller.
• I think the framing was usually spot on, with the exception of the shot of the gun sliding across the table, in which the gun actually goes out of shot at the end of the clip, however in the other take we took of this was also out of shot, this was due to the impracticality of seeing the camera when it was so high up. I do think that we remedied this by making sure to only cut briefly to this shot.
• If I was to reshoot this, I would take more shots, and be more aware of where people start talking, because while editing we discovered we would find it hard to use our master shot as the conversation earlier in this shot than in any other shot (as it started before "Wrodland" sat down.)

6. What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?

• I have learnt how to effectively use continuity and the 180 degree rule to create a flowing clip
• I also learnt that remembering to take note of framing will result in a better clip, and that time management is very important
• This will be useful when planning in the future coursework as we will know what to look out for and plan for in the future, for example we had a last minute change in location during this shoot, we will know to plan for this if there were to be a change in shoot location in the future.