Preliminary Task Evaluation

What did you learn from the experience of filming the footage required for your preliminary task? What went well and what could have been done better?

I learnt from filming the footage that you need all the thing the same as they were in the previous shot and that you need to make sure that you're out of the shot when you start filming, for example when we were filming we had to do several retakes when we ended up in the shot, like when we were panning across the room and all you see is Evie ducking to hide under a table, after that incident though we never got in the shot again, so didn't have to spend more time filming.

Evie getting in the shot

I also learnt you need to be more aware when filming to prevent yourself from filming in portrait like I ended up doing for one shot, however I am now more aware on which position I'm filming in and because of this the rest of our shots were in landscape. 

Also we need to speak louder in future tasks as the audio of the video is poor quality and needs to be turned up a lot to be clearly heard, we can now improve on this in the future. As well as putting breaks in between the speech so it's easier to do the shot/reverse shot when editing.

What is the difference between pre-production, production and post-production?

Pre-production is all the things you need to do before filming- for example the planning, production is the filming and post-production is the editing and all the thing that come after filming. 

How easy did you find editing in iMovie? Explain at least 4 different skills or techniques that you learnt during this process. 

I found editing in iMovie really easy, as everything is quite simple and self explanatory and because of this I found it easy to learn lots of new techniques. Like editing the sound out, so you can add music into your piece and not have irrelevant background noise in it too.
I also learnt how to fade music out so it would fit into my piece better and not suddenly cut off, which would sound really bad.
As well as learning how to edit my raw footage so it has match on action and continuity which is needed for my preliminary task to make sense.
Finally I also learnt how to add transition
slides to make the whole task run much smoother and better put together, making it look more professional and interesting to the audience.

What is continuity editing?

Continuity editing is the unbroken and consistent existence of the shot over a period of time.

What do the following terms mean; a) match on action, and b) shot / reverse shot

Match on shot action is when an action commenced in shot A is completed in shot B, or an action in shot A is mirrored by an action in shot B.

Shot/reverse shot is where one character is shown looking at another character, and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.

Analyse your preliminary task as a piece of continuity editing. What are its strengths and what are its weaknesses

The strengths of my task are that I managed to use a variety of different techniques, like slow motion and transition slides to make it look more interesting to the audience and make it easy for there to be more continuity in the piece, as it's much smoother in transitioning from slides so it looks like nothing has been missed and this is a clear swap to a different place/slide, not a skipped out part.
Also that there was constant continuity and match on action in my piece and
I have used shot/reverse shot accurately and effectively.

My pieces weaknesses are the lack of music in the opening title - which is likely to make the audience feel awkward and it doesn't fit with the rest of the continuity in the piece, the lack of volume on the speaking - which makes it hard to understand and hear and that is useless, so in future pieces I now know to get the actors to speak louder and more clearly for the camera.
Also when filming the speech needs to be more spaced out if I'm filming shot/reverse shot, so when I get to editing the raw footage there will be more continuity in the piece, it'll be easier to edit and will sound more clear and less rushed.