Lauren's Preliminary Task Evaluation:

'The Confession':

Breif of task:

For our preliminary task we were asked to produce a short video with the following requirements:

• A character opens a door.
• Walks across a room.
• Sits down opposite another character.
• Exchanges two sentences of dialogue.
• Use the three principles of Continuity editing. 

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 Pre- Production:

As a group we (Hannah,  Ciara and I ) had a twenty-minute period in order to plan and decide what genre our short video would be based around; following this we quickly decided where we would film in order to achieve the atmosphere we wanted to flow throughout our video. We opted for a dark grungey looking location so our video appeared sinister, and fitted the thriller police interview we had envisioned in our heads. 

This location happened to be behind the stage curtains on our main stage in our school hall. we used props of the tables and chairs in which the characters sat opposite from each other - to create an effect as if the suspect was in an interview room. This set the scene but also incorporated one of the key aspects we needed.


Production: 

Throughout the production of the video we wanted to withhold an intense atmosphere and we achieved this through the eerie thriller music that played on and off throughout. Not only this but it was backed up by the dispersal of text through the use of placement of credits being at the beginning and the end ; and  the words coming and leaving the screen quickly in our credits sets the pace and reinforces the genre of our video.

The use of the dark music suited our dark environment, however we encountered issues with our lighting and is why we could not achieve a shot without the image appearing grainy and slightly blurred. Because of  the poor lighting,  flashes of faces are only visible and although this was the aim in order to make the piece seem more suspenseful ; the shots of the face's are not clear and therefore we did not achieve wholly the effect we wanted. 

To achieve any images of the characters I had to use the torches on mine and Hannah's phone, because of this I had to angle the phones to get any relatively clear shots. However we could have achieved a dark atmospheric video if we had more technical equipment to help us.

As a group we were successful in achieving the shot reverse shot; and it was smooth flowing when panning from Ciara's face and turning on to Hannah's. We could have improved our shot of Hannah going through the door and it closing behind her but again due to our lack of light this was not possible. Overall lighting was our biggest hindrance.

 Editing:

During the process of editing we used final cut pro to polish and round off our piece to the best of our ability.


We imported each clip from our desktop onto Final cut pro , and cut down the clips to the vital bits we wanted. Furthermore we pieced them together so that the video flowed, we then searched YouTube to find a soundtrack that fitted our genre and suited the footage we had put together to make our video.
 
We found a soundtrack that was eerie and went well with the dark Sinicism of our video. we YouTube converted and imported it through ITunes into final cut pro , we done this several times as we had to cut and position the music in various places.


finally , we added the credits to the video and we chose the dispersing text in order to set the pace and genre of the film which continues throughout our piece, the use of red text is alarming and honed in further on our genre solidifying it.