Jon's Evaluation

Throughout this task I learnt various filming and editing techniques, and what is the easiest and most effective technique to use for different times.

The way we filmed our short wasn't in the conventional bit-by-bit way. In most shots, we filmed the whole scene from one position, and then again from another. This presented a continuity challenge, however it was easily overcome by planning each action, and rehearsing everything until our actors could do the same actions, over and over again. This allowed more flow into the film, and we found it easier when editing.

The markers at the beginning of each shot I found were really helpful, as when we imported it into iMovie, the shots were split up and we knew exactly which shot was which.

One problem we realized after filming and editing, was that we had got the 180 degree rule wrong. We had filmed 'diagonally' instead of mirroring, however it was too late to change, so we just had to leave it like that.

Another technique we wanted to achieve was dollying. However we found when using a wheelie chair, that it was very difficult to achieve a smooth fluid motion using that form of makeshift dolly.

Editing wise, I thought it worked well using Premiere Pro on the laptop, as it allowed us to work on it outside of lessons and not have to book a computer. However in future I would most probably hope to use Final Cut on the desktop macs so we can keep everything together. We put each shot on a separate video and audio track, and then cut the best bits out of each, and mixed it with extreme close ups of the eyes, among other miscellaneous shots. This helped maintain fluidity in the film. We also experimented with the RGB colour correction, however we decided that we should leave it natural.

Personally, my role was the location scout, and camera operator. Although, Tom and Ays found the location as I was away for that lesson, and as Tom (director) also acted, I also did a small amount of directing.

In future, I think we should try and prioritize things a bit better, for instance the first time we filmed, we concentrated on getting smaller shots that weren't very significant (for instance a coin being tossed), rather than getting all the essential filming done first. This then meant we had to rush the filming slightly towards the end.