Preliminary Exercise Review

The first and most obvious mistake that I made was that we did not collect enough shots to take into the editing room and as a result there was a severe lack of coverage which hindered the look of the short film which we produced. We realised on post production that we had not shot an establishing shot of the subject walking down the corridor which meant that we had to skip straight to the opening of the door. This meant that the beginning of the film looked jumpy and awkward and simply didn't sit well. In theory this mistake can be, and should be, easily corrected by simply keeping better track of the shots we have, or have not, filmed. We should lay out a firm and well thought out plan of in what order we will film each shot and stick to it as closely as possible. It should be a high priority that we regularly check the plan as not getting enough coverage in our main coursework could be a severe hindrance. It should be fairly straightforward to correct this fault by the time we come to finalising our main piece of coursework. Future projects should give us a guide on how we are progressing.

Secondly, we should be more vigilant about framing issues. In this exercise there were several shots where the rule of thirds was corrupted and as a result there were several shots where our subject appeared at an awkward angle. More specifically there was a lot of dead space and unnecessary background which produced an awkward aesthetic to the piece. This mistake can be corrected by simply taking more time and precision on lining up each shot. Now that we have learned more about the rules we should be able to know for ourselves whether a shot is properly set up, which in theory means that careful checks of the camera screen should enable us to prevent any shots not adhering to framing guidelines. The next project will be an ideal opportunity to see if we have made progress on this front.

Also, during the editing process it was revealed that some of the shots, most notably the pan shots, came out slightly wobbly. This is because when we did the panning shots we did not do a good enough job of keeping the movement of the camera smooth and relatively seamless. As a result the shots looked jumpy and detracted the eye of the audience away from the main action which was not beneficial. In order to correct this it will be necessary to further practice the technique required for panning shots and if impossible collect several takes of panning shots on the next task so that there is more coverage when editing. This will enable us to have a higher chance of producing a quality panning shot which can used in the final piece. Additionally, more preparation will be required in setting up the action in order to prevent the cameraman from being confused or not a hundred per cent sure on the starting and finishing points.

Finally, this task has reiterated the point that perhaps on occasions keeping it simple is the best option. We found on this task that in some respects we tried to over complicate things and because of this some of the more basic aspects such as framing and coverage were overlooked causing the piece to look more amateurish than would be desired. This would also apply to the use of dialogue. In our final piece it may be best, given the limited acting resources, to keep the dialogue simple but not dull, meaning that a suitable compromise will need to be found.