Evaluation Question 7 - Billie

looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progressions from it to the full product?

The preliminary task was a continuity task which involved filming and editing techniques. We had to film someone, walking down a corridor, walking through a door, sitting on a chair across from another person where they then have to exchange some dialect. The preliminary task demonstrated the three rules of continuity, these are, shot-reverse-shot, match on action and the 180-degree rule. This task was important because it allowed us to practice our filming and editing before we made our main film and it also gave us something to look back on to see how much we have improved from our preliminary task to our main filming task. Our main task was to think of our own storyline for a genre of our choice and to make it appeal to the genres specific target audience. We had to film a maximum of three minutes from the start of our storyline and it had to include a title sequence.

During the preliminary task I learned how to create an accurate match on action. I did this with the first scene in our thriller film to make the clips flow smoothly and to allow the audience to watch it without even noticing the cuts.

Doing the preliminary task gave me and my group a lot more confidence to attempt to get as many different shots into our main task as possible. The preliminary task also helped us improve our editing skills to make things run without obvious cuts. This meant we could use multiple different shots but make them fit together perfectly. I did this by editing a point of view shot with a close up, that then goes back to a point of view shot, with Emma coming face to face with the killer.

Doing a preliminary task also meant as a group we could fully understand the meaning of different angles in a film. For example when there is a high angle shot it makes the characters seem vulnerable and powerless in a situation. So we used this when our protagonists were phoning the police to give the impression that there isn't much that they can do.

Overall, the preliminary task helped me understand filing a lot more ready for our main film. It helped me know when to cut for a match on action and to follow the 180-degree rule. It also helped me know how to apply different meaning to different shots and angles.