Evaluation Q.7

Preliminary film

It has been less than a year since we created our preliminary film and after watching it I can clearly see the vast improvements I’ve made in developing my skills.

Firstly this entire sequence was pieced together using Final Cut Express a software outdated by Premiere pro, due to this the sequencing appears fairly sketchy, and the soundtracks were downloaded from poor online sources and their sound levels do not match and often does not coincide with the video.
The sound effects also are rather fake sounding and not really mixing well with each other and this is also due to sourcing from poor quality websites.
Even for a comedy piece the narrative seems completely unclear and difficult to understand, the worst part is the camera angles, there seems to be no variation other than a shot reverse shot and little is established, it also to a certain degree breaks the 180 degree rule.

Most notably the titles are very poorly animated in a boring and unappealing format that doesent work with the film.

The worst bit especially was the story board (note: I could only salvage little evidence of it)

The detail in this story board is completely insufficient, there is no or little detail referring to the shot or any form of notes that would be helpful to a producer.

The image may be poor but that isn’t majorly important to a story board, this story board is unorganised and poorly arranged half of it is actually scribbled out, even for an Initial story board this is appalling.

 After reviewing my old film it is very clear my skills and knowledge has improved significantly, for example it’s clear my skills at continuity editing have vastly improved, everything in our new film flows smoothly in a chronological order that makes sense, also the clips I have cut into place are better timed this is due to the care and consideration when filming them, I began filming before the dialogue began and after it ended in order to get a better timed cut in the editing, which clearly is something I did not do during the preliminary.
My creativity when it comes to filming has improved, I am now better at including a greater variation of shots from better angles and have become more talented at filming in general I’ve developed a more steady hand and eye for takes, also we used a far better quality camera in comparison to the simple flip cameras used in the preliminary.

 My skills at editing have improved as well as the software I use, using premiere Pro I can apply filters, change speeds and apply transitions making for a far more advanced product, I can now edit sound levels to make incidental sound tracks and sound effects more effective.
Also you can clearly see that my skills in creating titles that work with the film have greatly increased, using live type I can make clear concise titles that suite the film and are not too over the top and actually feature relevant information.

 

Most crucially the amount of time and effort put into the planning stages is significantly more than before, for my preliminary film I did a simple story board with little detail, for the main film I did a detailed story board, a script, time planning schedule, filming sheets and group discussions.

However one aspect that unfortunately let me down was my groups team work skills, all thought the filming there were arguments, disagreements, let downs and low morale despite the vast amount of planning done.
It makes me thing overall that when it comes to team sizes a duo is ideal, there are fewer clashes in ideas and it’s easier to match each other’s requirements and thoughts, also the work load is balanced between the two allowing each to use their skills sufficiently, despite the phrase “Three’s company” I believe that is too many people for an efficient coalition.