Preliminary Exorcise

Preliminary Exorcise

Written Evaluation:

Before we could even begin to think about the main project of a film opening we had to demonstrate we had the essential skills. This meant basic shot framing, match on action and shot reverse shot so a lot depended on our camerawork and editing abilities, sound and mise en scene taking a back seat.

In filming it would be safe to say that camera work is a pretty essential element and I like too think we gave it the attention it deserved. Sure enough the shots were steady in focus, or close enough. Most of the shots were also well framed with exception of perhaps the close ups during the shot reverse shot sequence. Charlotte, our first character, could do with a little more looking room whilst Sarah, our second character, moved forward in her chair thus cutting off the top of her head towards the end of her lines. These however were minor errors, had we noticed them we would have re-shot them at the time but we didn’t and I think we made the best of it in editing. Certainly I would say from height of the camera we got the eye-line match about right, and kept to the 180 degree rule, it was something I paid particular attention to during our shot reverse shot sequence. I don’t think I would change any shots other than the framing on the close-ups, I would however add in one which establishes the relationship of the two characters within the room just after Charlotte’s entrance.

Then we come to the equally important and time consuming process of editing, in this case I think we worked quite efficiently. I would say our match on action does as required, it took several tries not to get a delay on the door opening from the other side but eventually I think I had it cut correctly and without any jump cuts. The shot reverse shot sequence works appropriately for me, I deliberately only shot it from two angles so that we wouldn’t be tempted to cut between different angles in the edit causing confusion rather than keeping it simple and effective. The pacing I’m less sure about, our sequence is actually under the time limit and with more time that could have been changed in the edit by giving the characters a little more breathing room as it were between lines. All in all we kept it simple and effective and I like to think we achieved invisible editing, I wouldn’t change much if I were to edit this again if anything I would maybe leave a bit more pause after a couple of the characters lines.

That leaves sound and mise en scene which took less major roles in this case. The sound is probably the weak point in our final cut but the dialogue is audible and the background sound is limited so it isn’t a disaster by any means. As for mise en scene it did at one point nearly cause continuity error when a friend who came to watch wrote on the white board half way through shooting but James thought to point it out, we rubbed it off and it does not appear in our final piece.

All in all I think the finished product does as was required of it and I’m happy with it. In terms of teamwork myself and James worked surprisingly well together and I will be happy to be working with him on the main project. Our contributions weren’t completely even, I did much more of the editing for example but in the filming certainly they evened out and James put in an equal amount into the planning and if it weren’t for him we wouldn’t have had any actors which for a group of two would have rendered this task impossible.