Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
What did we learn from our continuity exercise?
From our continuity exercise we learnt a few things. For instance we learnt different shot types such as the Closeup Shot, Tracking Shot and Over the Shoulder shot. The ability to use these shots and understand them allowed us to use them effectively in our final product. Another technique we learnt to use was the 180 degree rule. This rule is used so that it doesn't make the screenplay seem confusing to the viewer in terms of how the character is moving. Finally we learnt the basics of editing in terms of cutting scenes. This was a prominent feature in our final opening and so this technique was useful to us in the continuity exercise.
What mistakes did we make during the continuity exercise and how did we learn from this?
During the production of our continuity exercise, we made a few mistakes that slightly changed the overall end product. For instance the dialogue was quite hard to hear due to the ambient noise created from the surroundings and also due to the microphone quality on the camera. Next we didn't use the 180 degree properly as we broke it a few times during the exercise. This meant that the actor appeared to be walking the wrong way and this could be confusing for the people watching it. The actors also had slightly different clothes on in each scene due to the filming taking over a few days.
From these mistakes we learnt how to effectively use the 180 degree rule and the proper effect it has on the viewer.
In the full product, how did we ensure we didn’t make the same mistakes?
In the production of our full product, we looked at the mistakes we encountered in our continuity exercise and considered this when creating our final piece. For example we recorded footage various times. This allowed us to be flexible with the final production as we had lots of shots to use. Furthermore we used the same clothes during the filming stage as this makes the product more fluent and realistic.
How could we do better next time?
To do better next time we could have recorded the footage multiple times as we found that we were quite limited with what we could produce with the material we had. We could also have considered the 180 degree rule more and therefore used it more effectively.
