Preliminary Task and Evaluation (Elliot)

For our preliminary task my group was presented with the idea of creating a digital text whereby a person can be seen walking towards a door, open the door, sit down opposite another person and then exchange several lines of dialogue in order to demonstrate our knowledge and understanding of production and the skills that are involved in order to create an effective text.

In order to achieve this we were reminded to consider the theories of production, including the 180-degree rule, continuity and the rule of thirds, when producing this text. Additionally, I had to consider and adjust the white balance and aperture in order to increase the light exposure to the lense to create an overall effective text. 


Preliminary Task by Tony Egan (5069), Elliot Stahlmann (5214) and Michael Currie (5053)

From an evaluative perspective I would contend that the overall text was highly successful at meeting the criteria of the brief. Although, I would agree that the piece could have been filmed and edited to a greater quality that would have ultimately improved the success of the piece. In terms of pre-production I would say that the planning process was largely productive in terms of the context of the text however I would also say that in terms of location my group and I could have perhaps selected a more appropriate location with greater lighting.

On a similar note, it could be contended that our match-on-action and continuity were rather successful although could still be improved. In my opinion I feel that our match-on-action was accurate on a technical level yet felt quite jarring to watch. Thus in the future I would use more than one camera to film the text from different angles but also i would remember to take several shots as with this task we were significantly limited with time and only one camera was available to us. In addition, I will focus on planning as this is an area of pre-production that warrants time to plan around any issues that could be foreseen, such as location issues regarding space availability and lighting.

Alternatively, my group and I used a wide variety of diverse camera angles and shots, and regarded the rule of thirds, in order to effectively create the text and to highlight specific areas of the piece; for example to accentuate and draw attention to faces and the mysterious bags. In so doing, we aimed to entice the viewer and draw in on their curiosity as an audience. Likewise, the 180-degree-rule also played a key role regarding the conversation and as a group this is something we had to consider, especially when planning for a location as we had to evaluate whether the space available was sufficient or not.

If I were to reproduce this text then I would remember to be somewhat more prolific regarding the planning of location because, as can be seen in the text, the lighting of the piece was very poor, or more so, the fact that we selected a significantly dark filter meant that the piece would appear dark either way, hence we should have considered this and maybe counteracted this by exposing the setting to more light and later select a suitable filter so that we could still achieve a gloomy and dull atmosphere but maintain the quality of the digital clip.

Generally I would say that our piece was highly successful considering it was one of our first practices of filming. Additionally, there is much to be desired with the piece but on the whole the digital text we created was effective at meeting the brief and at creating a mysterious and erie toned atmosphere.