Preliminary Task (Final Film)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woklEjxFvMk

This is the link to our final piece of our preliminary task. Thanks and enjoy

Preliminary Task:Self Assessment (Junior Adekunle)

Preliminary Task

· Does your film use continuity editing so that the sequence of events are clear and easily understood by the viewer?

I believe that our film does use continuity editing so that the sequences of events are clear and understandable to the viewer. We tried to combine the clips in a way that we used many different camera angles, and many different views of the scene to give a impression of the surroundings and make the clip interesting rather than just sticking with one camera angle/perspective. However, the editing wasn't as good as it could of been due to the sheer amount of time we spent filming individual clips, leaving us with little time to edit to the film to what we imagined or hoped it to be. Some people understood the story and what it was about, but both us and the audience believed there was too much running or 'chasing' scenes and little dialogue which is often quite important so this is something we can certainly alter for the main task. If we had more time to edit, this certainly would of helped the audience to understand the story better. It seemed that the film flowed well but we changed cameras half way through filming to a HD Camera, so wide screen video wasn't persistent, this obviously affected the quality of the film, but its something that can be worked on for the main task by using one camera so that we have a continuous quality throughout our whole film so that the film is clear for the audience and recipients of the film and it is easy for them to understand. we must also make sure that our time management is improved on so that we have enough time to make sure we sort out the film editing to a very high level so that we can make sure that both the acting and the editing of the film are both done to a very high level. 

· Have you followed the directions in the brief? (A character opens a door, crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite another character. An exchange of dialogue occurs.)

We didn't really follow the directions in the brief as much as we could of done but we did include some of the instructions given to us. We didn't exchange much dialogue in the film so this can certainly be improved on in the main task. This was because of most of the film was chase scenes, and sound wasn't clear on the bits we did have dialogue, because of the cameras used did not give us the best quality recording meaning we could not hear our dialogue and because of the time filming we were unable to re record our dialogue into our film as we did not leave ourselves enough time to edit this meant that the audience were unable to understand the film we presented to them as there was no dialogue so this is something we can definetley improve looking ahead to the main task.

· Have you used match-on-action?

We included a match on action shot on the school gate when Dan Smith & Liam Taylor were rushing to open the gate by typing in the code and the shot remained on the gate, this though was not very clear to the audience and we had to explain where we had fitted this in, so as group we feel we can improve on the clarity of the shots we have used, this is something we will improve on ahead of the main task.

· Can you explain what a match-on action involves?

Match On Action-Match On Action is a continuity editing technique. For example, it can involve a person opening a door like in the video presentation of Match On Action that we have also made. This can be done in three simple shots; One to show the person walking towards the door, another shot zoomed on the person’s hand on the door, and the final shot to show the person coming through on the other side. These shots are all then edited together to make it look continuous and as if it is all happening fluently and naturally. This technique can be done with any action, it is just to portray a false sense of continuity to the viewer.

· Have you used shot/reverse shot?

yes we including a shot/reverse shot when me (Junior Adekunle) was chasing Daniel Smith and Liam  Taylor into the school as the camera was changed many times from me to them.

· Can you explain what shot/reverse shot involves?

A shot reverse shot is also a continuity editing technique that conveys either two characters having a conversation, looking at each other, or a person looking at an object.- It is often filmed over one actor’s shoulder to show, what the other person is saying. This person will say all their lines. Then it will be filmed over the first speaker’s shoulder, and the other person will say their lines. This will all then be edited together to make it look like a fluent and continuous conversation between the two people.

· Did you observe the 180-degree rule?

no we were unable to include this into our film as we did not plan for it but we shall and try and improve this for the main task and make sure this is included into our film as we are able to 

· Can you explain the 180-degree rule?

180° degree rule is a filming guideline.-It is the rule that all filming takes place within the same 180° circle so that it maintains the audiences’ sense of location. If this circle is breached, the characters will appear on the opposite side of the screen to before, and this will look unnatural and provoke confusion, therefore we use the rule to prevent this.

· What role did you play in the making of the preliminary task? (e.g. filming, acting, editing, equipment organisation etc.)

• Producer 
• Editor 
• Lead Cast
• Actor 
• Location Scout 

· How would you assess your contribution to the group?

i feel i made a very big contribution to my group as i was instrumental in the making of our preliminary film i was involved in the planning, filming, producing, locating our places of filming i feel that these were essential roles to he film working and being put together of course we as a collective unit believe the preliminary task could have been a lot better and all of us will work hard to make sure the Main task is done to a very high quality.

Preliminary Task: Self Assessment (Owen Bates)

Preliminary Task

· Does your film use continuity editing so that the sequence of events are clear and easily understood by the viewer?
I believe that our film does use continuity editing so that the sequences of events are
clear and understandable to the viewer. We tried to combine the clips in a way that we 
used many different camera angles, and many different views of the scene to give a 
impression of the surroundings and make the clip interesting rather than just sticking with 
one camera angle/perspective. However, the editing wasn't as good as it could of been 
due to the sheer amount of time we spent filming individual clips, leaving us with little 
time to edit to the film to what we imagined or hoped it to be. Some people understood 
the story and what it was about, but both us and the audience believed there was too 
much running or 'chasing' scenes and little dialogue which is often quite important so this 
is something we can certainly alter for the main task. If we had more time to edit, this 
certainly would of helped the audience to understand the story better. It seemed that the 
film flowed well but we changed cameras half way through filming to a HD Camera, so 
wide screen video wasn't persistent, this obviously affected the quality of the film, but its 
something that can be worked on for the main task by using one camera.

· Have you followed the directions in the brief? (A character opens a door,
crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite another character. An 
exchange of dialogue occurs.)

We didn't really follow the directions in the brief as much as we could of done but we did include some of the instructions given to us. We didn't exchange much dialogue in the film so this can certainly be improved on in the main task. This was because of most of the film was chase scenes, and sound wasn't clear on the bits we did have dialogue, because of the cameras used.

· Have you used match-on-action?

We included a match on action shot on the school gate when Dan & Liam were rushing to open the gate by typing in the code and the shot remained on the gate. 

· Can you explain what a match-on action involves?

A match on action shot 

· Have you used shot/reverse shot?

Yes we included the shot/reverse shot when

· Can you explain what shot/reverse shot involves?

· Did you observe the 180-degree rule?

· Can you explain the 180-degree rule?

· What role did you play in the making of the preliminary task? (e.g. filming, acting, editing, equipment organisation etc.)

My roles in the Preliminary Task were:

Director

Cinematographer

Editor

Sound Editor

Location Scout

• 
  

· How would you assess your contribution to the group?

· What have you learned from the process of making your preliminary film?

Preliminary Task: Self Assessment (Liam Taylor)

· Does your film use continuity editing so that the sequence of events are clear and easily understood by the viewer?

Yes and no we did use continuity editing so the audience can follow the characters on their where abouts and location. However when the our preliminary task was shown to an audience some people got confused on what was going on, however some people completely understood everything that was happening throughout the film.

· Have you followed the directions in the brief? (A character opens a door, crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite another character. An exchange of dialogue occurs.)

No turns out we completely forgot about the brief so the brief of 'A character opens a door, crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite another character. An exchange of dialogue occurs.' Did not take place.

· Have you used match-on-action? 

Yes we did use a match-on-action at the scene where Dan types in the code quickly to get through into the school gate.

· Can you explain what a match-on action involves?

The match-on-action involves Dan attempting to type the code to get into the school through the school gates. We used this to demonstrate the struggle Dan is having when trying to type the school gate code and the fear and terror he is experiencing.

· Have you used shot/reverse shot?

Yes we used a shot/reverse shot in the scene where Dan and Liam run into the school and through to the main hall where the doors shut.

· Can you explain what shot/reverse shot involves?

The shot/reverse shot was used during the scene where Dan and Liam first enter the main hall and close the doors to try and hide from Junior, and then opens the curtains and shows Junior standing there outside of the doors showing that Dan and Liam cant hide.

· Did you observe the 180-degree rule?

No we did not include it.

· Can you explain the 180-degree rule?

· What role did you play in the making of the preliminary task? (e.g. filming, acting, editing, equipment organisation etc.)

My roles during this preliminary task were:

• Producer 
• Editor 
• Lead Cast
• Actor 
• Location Scout 
• Sound Editor 

· How would you assess your contribution to the group?

I would say I had a big contribution to the group but could of done a lot more to help to the contribution of the task a little bit more for example i could of helped a bit with the camera work in scenes that i was not already doing a job in.

· What have you learned from the process of making your preliminary film?

I have learnt that making a short film is not as easy as i expected it to be and i expect my main task to be a lot better then my preliminary as i have learnt so much during the making of the preliminary i can add it to the main task.

Written & Uploaded by Liam Taylor

Storyboard

This is a wide shot, showing the three friends, Dan, Liam, Junior, walking through the forest together, the picture also shows the audience the surrounding environment and the fact that Dan and Liam, are busy on their phones, junior however is not, on his phone and later on in the shot he gets dragged into a bush, Liam and Dan don’t realise because they are too busy on their phones. This shot is used to show the three friends all together this shot also shows how close the friends are.

In this shot we can see Junior has disappeared from the camera frame, this shows the audience that something has clearly happened to junior and Dan and Liam have not realised yet, but the audience have. This is a two shot of the characters reactions after junior disappears this shot we decided was best to portray the characters emotions.

This is an establishing shot, it’s the first shot of the short film, and it shows the environment the characters are in and basically just sets the scene, all the characters are walking together showing friendship, also the shot shows that we are walking through a forest.

This is the second to last shot of the chase, where junior chases Dan and Liam out the forest, from the picture we can see junior disappearing into the distance, this shows the audience that, junior is possessed and has been chasing us for a long time.

Group Roles 

Liam Taylor - My group role during the preliminary story board role was to find a location and suggest what pictures/screenshots to take. The locations used in the story board are Durham Woods and The Howard School.

Research Into our Target Audience(Preliminary Task)

After we Presented our Pitch to the other groups in the class we were able to receive feedback from our peers and we were able to receive constructive criticism and evaluation which we believe will help us in making our Preliminary task that much better.

One of the Evaluation points from our fellow peers was that we could have presented a pitch a lot better as we did not look out our audience and we may not have explained our pitch clearly enough and it was a little hard for audience to understand we have processed this and discussed this as a group and we are working to make sure future presentations are presented to a much higher standard and that our presentation and objective is easy for the audience to understand for so they can either critique it so we can improve or praise our idea and draw ideas from it.

One of the constructive criticism points we received was that our original idea of filming some of our task at night time may be a bad time to do it because at this time there is low lighting the quality of the camera shots and angles will be very poor meaning the quality of our task will fall below the standards required so after receiving this feedback from our peers we as a group have decided to change the time of filming to the evening because there is more light at this time of night meaning the quality of the camera shots and angles will be at a higher standard we also discussed a way of keeping the film scary without having to film it at night and have decided that we shall edit our task to make it look dark this keeps the horror essence in our task and this our main aim as the genre of our preliminary task was to meet the requirements of our genre which is horror, another idea we have had is to get a good quality camera that can also film at a high quality at night so then each of our camera angles and shots are still at a high quality which again keeps the horror essence in our task.

Another Piece of feedback that we received from our audience was that the location of the forest that we have picked to film some of our preliminary task was  not a good location to film some of our
shots and angles because there are leaves and trees that may disrupt the quality of the shots and angles that we produce we as a group have evaluated this feedback and we have decided as a unit that we shall still film part of our task in the forest but we will be careful as to where we film so that we are not disrupted by things like leaves and trees keeping our camera angles and shots at a very high quality, because of this we are able to achieve one of our aims which is to produce a high quality Preliminary task but also help us work towards achieving our overall objective which is to make sure the task portrays our genre which is Horror effectively and efficiently.

The last piece of feedback and evaluation from our peers was that we may need to change which people in our group play a certain character to improve the quality of our task but as a group we have decided to keep the roles and the people who play them same but as a group we have decided to manipulate and change these characters so that the quality of our task is again at a high standard but also meets our aim of meeting our Genre which is horror.

We would like to thank our peers for the constructive criticism and evaluation we have received because it is through this feedback we are able to improve our preliminary task as a whole.

Group Roles

Liam Taylor - My role during the task to looking into our target audience was to look into the sort of audience we're looking to pitch our preliminary film at. For example I research what sort of age group most commonly watch horror and the result came back and teenagers and young adults. Due to this result I suggested we aim the preliminary short film at teenagers and young adults and the other three members of my group agreed too.

 

Pitch

Title: Black Death

Location: School Grounds/Forest

Genre: Horror

Time: Daylight, afternoon.

Plot Outline: Running away from Junior who is possessed, and hunting down Dan and Liam who are running towards the school for safety and protection, but have to pass through a forest to get to it. Filmed at night time all the way through, with the use of flashlights to illustrate darkness and the fact that they are being tracked/hunted down. They manage to get to the school and go and hide away from Junior however, they soon hear the door slam shut from where they entered, and going over there to find out it is now locked. Liam and Dan panic and discuss what they could do (with use of shot-reverse shot) , and hear the sound of a chair being chucked from behind them, further exploring where the sound came from, they approach the direction and go underneath the stage with a flashlight of which they obtain through looking through a desk (match on action shot ),  check their surroundings and after time has passed, Dan quickly moves- with a POV shot (180 degree turn) as if he had noticed something out the corner of his eye.

Dan then slowly moves towards the exit because he is scared, and camera changes view to the outside of the shut door, with a scream and the clip fades out to black.

Characters/Roles:

Owen- Camera man & Director 

Junior  - Possessed Demon chasing Dan and Liam.

Liam- Actor- Plays as Dan’s friend

Dan- Lead Actor, plays as the main character in order to tell story

This is our pitch for our Preliminary task this our original ideas this may not be our final concept because we may change our idea due to peer evaluation and feedback and also the quality of our task when we film it.

Group Roles

Liam Taylor - My role during the pitch was to come up with ideas and suggest them to make our preliminary task better because if we all put ideas out there it will be for the best as four heads is better than one.

Owen Bates- My role during the pitch was writing the pitch down and collecting ideas together to create a interesting preliminary task.