preliminary evaluation

My brief was to film and edit a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, where they should exchange a couple lines of dialogue. This preliminary task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.

At the beginning of my preliminary video, I used white bold writing the reason why I chose this is because it gives the audience a semantic code towards what is going to happen. Also this links to the name of my preliminary video "The Unknown Man" this makes the audience wonder who the man in my video actually is and whether he is a good guy or a bad guy, this then draws the audience in to wanting to know more about this person and what the character might be after or even whether he might be the one to look out for.

The things that went well with my work is that at the start I used music to build the tension of how my character 'Martha' is feeling, because she hasn't heard from her parents for quite a while - they went out for a meal, by building this tension up at the start of the video I used a medium/long shot, where I have my head on my knees and I am holding the teddy bear very tightly in fear, the fact that  I did this is that she might be worried about her parents never coming back again. A close up shot is followed on from this to show how frightened Martha is about a strange knock at the door, the facial expressions on my face portray how scared the character is feeling because there is a strange person at the door. However afterwards I do stand up and walk towards the window to look outside and then shaking, I gradually decide to open the door and then a mysterious man appears on the other side, the dramatic music then fades out and dialogue starts. This video was filmed at my house and both of my parents helped in the process of recording the preliminary footage (as it was convenient to fitting the brief of opening the door, sitting down and giving a couple lines of dialogue to one another and when I did each scene I could then set it up how I wanted them to happen, because it was the place where I was familiar of) the reason why I set my scene at the beginning on the stairs was so I could show my characters feelings and make it a bit more dramatic, this was important to setting the whole part of my video so then it would make the audience wonder why the character might be on her own.

When 'The Man' entered the house dialogue occurred, by doing this I used a medium/two shot to show what each character was feeling and to show mainly which one was the dominant character and who had more power throughout the video, by doing this I made sure that both the characters wore something completely different. The girl wore a dressing gown and the man wore a posh suit to show that he was the most dominant and important character throughout my video and this also made the audience wonder why he is so important. Even though I have never filmed anything to a film style standard I thought that I did quite a good job for my first ever go and I will also be able to learn from my mistakes, then this would make my final film perfect - I will then be able to correct those mistakes I made. Following on from this I think this video would appeal more to young teenage people, the reason for this is that it hasn't got much gore in it which is mostly for over 18's and I think my film is a very unique video for the younger age range.


From doing this video I have learnt to have better audio quality so then the person who is watching it can then hear the sound better and understand what is exactly going on by the mood of the music, I need to make sure that next time I use one of schools cameras so then the video will come out with a more HD quality and also I am going to use a tripod when filming so then the image doesn't look wobbly and  unprofessional, when filming it is important that I don't zoom in and out on the camera for example, if it was a close up I would move the camera up to the characters face this then gives it a better flow and makes it look more professional and finally I need to make sure that I do some colour corrections to all the different scenes so then the colour of each scene fits with what is going on e.g. there would be rain in the background or a dark eerie atmosphere if someone was angry or upset this would also use pathetic fallacy to the film to add a dramatic effect to draw the audience in to wanting to know more about what is going on. But overall I do think that because it is my first go at filming and editing a film, I have done a really good job and I will be able to improve my skills on the final video I do. Overall the thing that is key for my overall piece is that the actors/actresses know exactly what they are saying and doing and they need to make sure that they learn there lines before I start filming them, the reason why I picked this up is because on my preliminary while filming, one of the characters is acting while reading from the script in a scene and this isn't very professional and makes it look unorganised. In addition I have used the 180 degree rule to portray the characters talking when they are in the kitchen and a character opening the door and sitting down and exchanging a couple of lines, I do strongly agree that I met the brief, but I do need to make sure that I improve in the quality of the film to a high standard in my final work, I will certainly learn from this for next time and it would be better quality too.