For my preliminary task I had to to produce a short video that included shot reverse shot, match on action and the 180 degree rule.
Storyboarding my groups piece was initially a breeze, until we decided to change our storyline to un-complicated things. This also became more difficult as we were recording because we kept straying from the storyboard and kept adjusting shots during shooting to make them look more effective. We also changed some of the shots around when we were editing because we found out what we could adjust and make look better.
I think that out of everything that we had to do, the filming was the easiest because we already had it down on paper what we wanted to include and we knew what we wanted it to look like in our heads. This made it easy to transfer when it came to shooting and where the camera should be placed, what shots should be used and for how long. The main problem we faced was trying to find an empty classroom to record in that looked like the one that we had previously used, and because we were recording during lesson time, we were restricted on which ones we could use not only because it had to match the one we had used before, but also because we didn't want to disturb any working classes. Remembering to stick to the 180 degree rule was the simplest to integrate into the camera work and abide by out of all of the things we had to include, because it made sense not to move the camera to the other side.
We used video editing software called Pinnacle Studio to edit the footage captured. At first this was hard because we had never used it before, but once we got used to it and were shown how to use it properly it was really easy and quick to change what we wanted to change to the footage. We had some difficulty transferring the footage we had captured from the camera onto the software because of trouble with fire-wire connection and not understanding how to do it. Once we were shown how to get all of the footage onto the software in one go it was really simple. Getting the match-on action with the door perfect was really patience testing because it took a lot of time and re-runs to make sure we had got it as point on as possible.
Overall I am very pleased with how the video came out, especially for a first try. If I had to change anything I would only change the speed that we worked because we were slow at times and it had repercussions further down the line, such as not having enough time to edit and having to film across several days and forgetting what we had already done. If we had worked quicker it would have also meant that we wouldn't have to have worried as much about finding classrooms that matched the one we were in before, because we could have gotten it done in one filming lesson.
