Evaluation 7: Looking back at the preliminary task(the continuity editing task), what have you learnt from the progression of it to the main task?

Looking back at the preliminary task we have learnt tremendous amounts in terms of editing and camera shots. The brief of the preliminary task was extremely similar to our main task such as the camera shots we needed to include (180 Degree rule,shot reverse shot)so we knew what we needed to mainly include. The preliminary task enabled us to learn from the mistakes we made and improve them in our main task .Inturn this made the major factors of a good film product( mise en scene,camera shots and angles,editing and sound)better in the main task.

Within our preliminary task we hand held the camera throughout which created shakey/trembling shots, which looked unprofessional and clusmy. Whereas in the main task we used a tripod to capture still scenes for a more proffesional outcome. We did however, use hand held shots for effect during and after the occurrence. From a viewers point of view they then would be able to tell the hand held scenes a purposefully done and therefore more effective.

As we only had a few weeks to do the preliminary task, the filming was rushed in order to do the film editing in efficient time. This resulted in little to no editing effects within the preliminary task, causing the film to seem extremelybasic and amateur. In the main task we tried to avoid clumsy editing by allowing more time to film as much as we needed so we had more footage to work with and edit appropriately and sufficiently.

For our preliminary task we had to use three camera shots(180 degree rule,shot reverse shot and match on action). This gave me insight and knowledge into why we use different shots and camera angles in filming. For the main task I thought it would be useful to develop this knowledge and research into other camera shots to help improve our main task filming techniques.For example we used over the shoulder shots for each of our main characters and chose to use this technique to imply something looking from behind the characters.
We used tracking and timestretching in scene 2(school girl) to emphasise the movement of the character and time. We made sure we paid attention to the 180 degree rule in the main task as in the preliminary as the editing of the shots based around this became confusing in the preliminary task.


When trying to apply match on action in the preliminary task, we spent quite some time cutting out parts in editing that didn't work with the match on action. This then worked to our advantage in the main task as we were then able to find the shot exactly where Jaynes office scene needed to be cut,making the outside window shot and inside the office shot work well.

In terms of software use, in the preliminary task, using adobe premier elements proved difficult as none of us had used this software before,so it took some time to familiarise with it. This resulted in basic knowledge of the software which needed to be improved for the main task. Since we were given more time for the main task to edit we were then able to get to know the the tools,and how to produce our film with little error. Some of the skills I developed within the editing process included
Time strectching,use of effects and transition and duplicating. We also added relevant to genre music in each scene, for a thrilling/shocking effect which worked well.

Through these editing techniques we were able to create a proffesional end product, which would be able to compete with other low budget films of the same genre well.