Feedback and Evaluation of The Preliminary Video

To help us develop our camera skills before we shoot our film noir coursework we were given a task of shooting a short sequence. This would also help show us the progress we made throughout the year and can be used to help with the evaluation of our film noir.

The Brief: Produce a short clip containing an actor walking down a corridor, entering a room and exchanging words or an object with another actor. Show that you understand the 180 degree line rule and the 30 degree angle rule. Use shot/reverse shot.

I worked in a group with Maya and Jessica, and we used another group as our actors. We decided our actors would exchange the following simple conversation-

Chris: Have you got the money?

Josh: No, I just need another week.

Chris: Ok but this is your last chance

Josh: The money will be here next week. I guarantee it.

Our short sequence was shown to our media class. Our class was a good audience to show to because there is about 20 people with an even ratio of female and male. Also, because all of our class are studying the same thing everyone understood what we were aiming our presentation to be like and the ability to understand shot types, editing, cinematography which meant they were able to give our group in depth criticism. This means we now know what went wrong and how to fix it in our final main piece.

Our audience enjoyed our sequence and rated it one of the top from all the projects despite this they were still able to give us feedback and critisism.

Positive feedback
1.The shots were edited together well. They thought that it ran smoothly and the cuts were sharp.
2. use of cinematography as a whole was good.
3. particular good use of 180 degree rule and rule of thirds

Negative feedback
1.Boom appears once at the top of one shot.
2.Chris is delayed when looking up after the door opens
3.Camera is set to high in one shot, above eye level.
4.Some shots had too much 'baggy space'. meaning too much background space not focused enough on the characters.

I was happy with the result of our preliminary exercise. Shots had good framing and consideration had been paid to the rule of thirds. However, the actor’s eyes could have been better placed in shot in some instances and I will have to pay more attention to this next time. The boom appeared in one shot and this will be a valuable reminder to pay attention on the film noir to stop such occurrences. Editing needs to be improved to stop continuity blunders. The door opening audio edited in to soon for the reaction from Chris.

Conclusion on the whole we had good feedback from the class and as a group we were happy with the results. It is a good foundation for us to begin on and we learnt valuable lessons. I will now pay more attention to what is in the shot and where the eye lines are.