Preliminary Exercise Evaluation

1) Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?


I was in group 3E, and in my was Adam Romo, Daniel Sheldon, and myself, Matthew Smith. Below is a picture of our group.

We split the roles up equally. We all contributed and put in equal effort into storyboarding, creating ideas and planning our shooting. As we only had 3 people in our group and Adam and myself were actors in our sequence, Daniel was camera and sound man for most shots. I filmed the one shot in which I was not in (0:07-0:09) but apart from this shot, Daniel filmed the whole sequence. Adam and I balanced this out by taking a more dominant role whilst editing. Adam's job was to capture all shots filmed and transfer them onto the timeline. He then split these into the different shots and alternated them between Video Track #1 and Video Track #2. My job was to make a rough cut, getting rid of all 'Actions' and 'Cuts' and ordering shots. Then Daniel's job was to fine cut all shots and make sure the continuity was fine in regards to match-on action. I feel this worked really well, and we all feel that we spread the work out evenly.


2) How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try to take into account?


When we first planned our sequence, we jumped straight into storyboarding the below sheet. We came up with a quick, rough storyboard that gave our whole group an idea of what was happening and a chance to input ideas. We worked out the storyboard very easily, as we had easy access to our set, so each of us stood up and explained a part of a sequence was, pretending we were the camera, and acted it out. This made the whole thing very visual and made storyboarding easy and quick.

The above is our storyboard. We stuck by it almost completely  and used this, aswell as the below shooting schedule to help us when filming. The only changes we made to this storyboard was shot 3 and shot 7. Shot 3 was changed to look like shot 4, and became a mid, over the shoulder shot with the camera on me over Adam's shoulder. Although we changed this shot, it was still acting as the reaction shot that was part of the brief. Shot 7 was changed to look like shot 8, as a master, wide shot. We also added in a shot 9 and 10. Shot 9 was from inside of the room of the bully closing the door, and shot 10 was exactly the same shot as shot 8.


We are able to apply Levi-Strauss' theory of binary opposites to our sequence. Good vs. Evil is one of them. The nerd is the good as he has done nothing wrong and the bully is the evil as he is 'stealing'. Innocent vs. Violent is another binary opposite. The nerd is innocent, despite his reaction, and the bully is violent as he roughly chucks the nerds books onto the floor.

We are also able to apply Barthes' 5 codes to our sequence:

• Engima - Who is the bully? What has he been doing to the nerd? Why does the nerd go crazy? How long has it been going on for? What has happened in the past?
• Action - The bully (antagonist) throws the nerds' (protagonist) books on the floor, and then the nerd flips out and shouts "I'm fed up with you pushing me around!!" The tone of both of their voices help the audience quickly establish who is the protagonist and the antagonist.
• Semiotic - The high angle/low angle shots make the bully look superior and the nerd inferior which is vital in our sequence. The clothing of the bully makes him seem intimidating as he is wearing a hoodie, a piece of clothing that is strongly associated with disruptive, poor adolescent behaviour.
• Cultural - The title sequence, and the name of our sequence, NERD, puts the audience in the mind set of a bullying situation, which works in our favour.
• Symbolic - Due to the length of our sequence, it doesn't contain anything that is obviously symbolic.

3) What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?

Above is a picture of myself using all of the equipment that we had available for our production. When filming, we used a Canon HD Video Camera, with an attached Shotgun Microphone ontop. We didn't record in HD however. The Shotgun Microphone had 3 settings; Shotgun, 1 and 2. Shotgun was used for our conversation shots, as it gives the clearest sound settings when the subject is directly infront of the camera. Mode 1 was a little bit wider, allowing us to hear more background noice, which we used for our master shots. Mode 2 was very wide, and all surrounding sounds could be heard. We didn't use this mode at all. We were provided with Sennheiser headphones which allowed us to make sure the sound was alright before we started filming.

As you can see above, we were also provided with a clapperboard, and a tripod. We used both of these in all shots.

When it came to editing, we used a Dell Optiplex computer with Windows XP operating system. The program we used was Adobe Premiere Pro. This program was highly sufficient for the type of editing that we needed to do, and it allowed us to order, cut and finely adjust our sequence so that it was understandable for the audience.

4) What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?

When we were planning, we had to consider implementing all elements of the brief, which was:

• Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match-on-action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

We had to make sure that our sequence was capable to include all of these factors whilst maintaining that the sequence made sense to our audience. We planned before hand about all the match-on-actions that we intended to include, and always kept in mind what we were going to do when editing our sequence. Also, when planning, we always had to be conscious of time as we only had one hour to film, and another hour to edit so we couldn't make our sequence too complex or long. However, this wasn't hard as our sequence is extremely simple. Saying this, when we were filming, we were always checking the clocks, and making sure that we didn't spend too much time on any individual shot, as, although not being practical, we could go back and re-shoot shots at the end if we had time.

Post-production was the area in which we had to pay most action to the footage we have captured. Although we couldn't go back and film anymore, we had to make sure there was no continuity errors, that our sequence made sense, and that the match-on-action made our sequence believable and realistic. When editing, we did notice that a few of our shots wouldn't fit into our sequence because the continuity would be ruined. We attempted to put in a better reaction shot, but it didn't work well and in the end, we took it out. The match-on-action between shot 1 and shot 2 was one of the shots that we needed to get correct so that it would flow well and we all feel that it was perfect timing. Below is a picture of Adam and Daniel at our editing studio working on our project.

5) How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve / do differently?

I personally feel that our sequence did the job it was meant to do, and that we successfully acknowledged and met all of the parts of the brief. However, there are both pros and cons in our sequence.

The pros are that we managed to implement all the necessary requirements that were established in the brief. We were able to maintain good continuity techniques. We followed the 180-degree rule, achieved successful match-on-action, and used shot/reverse shot well, and overall, I believe we produced a high quality final product. The cons are that the storyline of our sequence isn't awfully original or unique, and is very simple. This means that the audience may be a little bit bored when watching it, but as the brief of the project was to include all the techniques, this was necessary.

In hindsight, I would make sure that we spent less time re-shooting shots and try to get a wider variety of shots filmed. This way, we could make our sequence a little bit longer, whilst still including all the continuity techniques and allowing a better narrative to be established. I also feel that we could of used some better angles, and shots like the one below are rather plain and get boring if used too much.

6) What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?

From completing this task, I have learnt that it is always important to plan ahead of schedule and make sure that what you are doing is time efficient. I have also developed skills such as team-working, creativity and technological skills. These will all help when completing the rest of my foundation coursework. I hope the understanding that I have gained from this task will help me when it comes to creating a 2 minute opening sequence, and I believe that it will help me.