Preliminary Task: Editing and Evaluation

There it is - the final product of our group. It took a surprisingly long time to film it, despite the actual piece being 50 seconds long. At the beginning of the project, we were asked to complete a 12 shot challenge (create a short film consisting of 12 different shots) - in which a character enters a room, sits opposite another character and they exchange few lines of dialogue. In that film, we had to demonstrate a variety of different shots and angles, match on action and the 180-degree rule. 

Firstly, we have created a mind map of ideas, which has definitely helped us with deciding what we wanted to continue with (since we had so many different ideas, the mind map was definitely necessary) - finally, we have chosen the idea I was thinking about for a pretty long time: the secret agents ideas. After that decision was made, we created the storyboard panels of shots we thought work well for presenting that idea. That was most likely the most important step in the pre-production process, as it allowed us to see where exactly we wanted to go with our piece and really focus on the ideas for our shots/angles/movements and props. Then, we planned everything relating to mis-en-scene, including a cast, a filming schedule, a location plan and a shot list (which have some inconsistency, mainly because our plans changed about a 100 times before we got to filming). All of these gave us a really good plan of action for the next step of our task. 

Generally, the filming process went great. We managed to film all the necessary shots quite effectively, despite some of the complications. What definitely helped us with making the process quick and efficient was the planning beforehand - we knew what we were doing. Yes, we did almost run out of time, but the main reason was that we had to change some of our plans, because of the location we were using and the cast problems (the person we have cast to play Agent A did not turn up, so Ashley - who was originally chosen to play B - had to step in to play A and we called our friend Josh to fill in for Agent B). However, in the end, we managed to film everything within the time limit (somehow).  Also, there was a minor issue with our props - the folder, to be exact. We could not lay our hands on  a brown one, like we originally planned, so we had to improvise; resulting in a blue, big folder being used instead. We also had to leave out the establishing shot we planned, as illness and other responsibilities meant no-one in our group was free to film at any point before the deadline (however, I don't think our piece suffered all that much).

The post production was of a huge importance. It allowed us to put all of the scenes in correct order (as during filming we had to change the shot list slightly) and blend them together as one continuous piece. It has also allowed us to get rid of most continuity errors (not all of them, unfortunately) in the actors and props (we did not expect that taking care of small things such as a hand gesture would matter that much!), resulting in our piece being shorter than expected. However, we were willing to sacrifice some footage for the sake of the quality. 

Our film's strengths definitely lie in the variety of shots and angles we have used, some of them being quite unusual (such as the ‘table’ angle when Agent A leaves the room) and the proper use of the 180 degree rule. The shots we used are all appropriate for what is happening in the scene and they - together with the angles - suitably set the tone of our piece: for instance, multiple close ups on Agent A’s feet, instead of showing the whole person, build suspense and somehow dehumanise the character, which is exactly what we were going for. Also, another major strength of our piece: the steady shots. I own a tripod, so we were able to use it while filming, resulting in a piece that looks far more convincing than if the camera was all over the place. The biggest weakness of our piece would be the continuity errors, both in lighting (which, as it was natural light, was beyond our control) and the positioning of props and/or actors. Editing helped minimalise some of them, but since some of the shots were only filmed once (due to the time constraints) we were unable to fix them all, such as the folder closing and opening in between shots. When we get to filming our main task, we will have to make sure that all of our shots are consistent. We also need to make sure we have plenty of time to reschedule filming, as we got to it way too close to the deadline and were not able to find more time when things did not go as planned. Additionally, we should be aware of how long we can use a certain location for, so that we are not put under time pressure (which could lead to some really terrible mistakes) and have time to film each shot enough times without rushing anything.