Rory Giddings

Preliminary Task - Evaluation

There are many things which I personally think went well in my preliminary task. Firstly, I am very pleased with the shots that I used as instead of simply switching back and forth between shot reverse shots I also chose to include a number of other shots such as long shots, close-up shots and mid shots which were effective as they allowed the viewer to gain a better insight and understanding of the character’s depicted within the scene.

Fortunately, there were only a limited amount of things that didn’t go well. For example, I found it hard to follow the script as it didn’t seem right for the scene and the area in which it was taking place. Furthermore, I felt like Ross wasn’t the right actor for the scene as you can see that he begins to break character in some of the clips. This was especially noticeable as Andrew was highly committed to his character and gave a very good performance. I also realised that in several of my clips I adjust the focus on specific objects within the frame, such as the character’s faces, which while I think was effective, the sound of the lens adjusting was highly distracting from the scene. This is particularly evident towards the end of the task when the majority of the focusing/adjusting is done. So to improve this, next time I would focus on the objects before I start filming.

I think that my shots were fairly good and I used a wide variety, but I think they could have been a bit more fluid, for example, when the camera was following Andrew they would be shaking and looked very amateurish. I also think that the script was also very good but wasn’t suited to the characters and actors within the scene. For example, whilst I used the first half of my script, I encouraged Ross and Andrew to steer away from it and improvise which I think worked fairly well.

If I was to do this task again I would add in sound effects to emphasise important aspects of film. For example, when Andrew slams his fist on the desk I would add in a hard/impact sound so that it emphasises the character’s frustration with it. Also if I were to do the task again I would make the scene longer, as I felt that it was rushed and ended too quickly. I would do this by adding more lines to the script and expanding the conversation.