Preliminary Assessment Evaluation - By Sarah Ellis

Use of the Camera 
Our finished work doesn't really provide evidence that we can hold a shot steady; purely because of the fact that most of the shots we used were panning and tracking shots; hence the camera shots were moving instead of still. Although there were a few still shots, which proved that we could hold a shot steadily, as shown in the first image.
We were able to frame shots properly as we avoided missing off the top of peoples heads; which we accidentally did in some of our previous test shots. We tried to maintain the rule of thirds throughout but it was more difficult when conducting panning shots.
We were able to include quite a wide variety shot types. We included quite a few mid shots. We used close up shots for effect or to point out a particular thing. Eg. We used a close up/Mid shot with the hand shot to emphasise the hand. We also used long shots which was effective when filming walking/travelling shots as shown in the third image  The majority of our shots were eye line shots, although we managed to include low and high angle shots. I believe that this worked well. This is shown in the second image.

Use of Editing

I believe that we have applied the rules of continuity editing. We ensured that our actor's movements were not jumpy and filmed shots more than once with the actor doing the same thing, to ensure that if we used a shot from a different angle, it wouldn't look jumpy. We cut clips precisely and tried hard not to cut them too early or too late. The background noise for each clip was clearly different, so we added music in the background to try and mask this and I believed it worked quite effectively. We used two different pieces of music but made them fade in and out so they didn't just 'appear' in the clip.

We made the decision to not include transitions to link our clips together as we believe that it would ruin the effect created by just the clips being put together.

Selection of Content
Our finished film doesn't really show any evidence for appropriate costume, make-up or props for our genre as we had to film it in class time without any of our resources. I believe that we chose an appropriate location and setting for our genre as the woods were quite eerie, yet there was still reasonable room to move around and film. Because we had to film in class time, we had to use Tom from our group for the part. I believe that Tom did well and that he acted convincingly anyway. I had to act one of the parts but to be fair I didn't really have to do anything but stand there.

Self-assessment
To help complete the film I contributed by filming various parts. I filmed the beginning panning shot and the low angle shot. In planning, I helped discuss which shots and angles could be used with my group and helped complete the shot list. I helped edit the film also. I split the film clips so that they would be easier to edit and helped cut clips also.
I believe some improvements which could be made to our finished film is to include make up and proper costume and also to find a different way of making the background noise the same all the way through. We could have also added titles but it proved to be a lot of hassle when we were trying to add it.
When it comes to our final coursework film I believe that we will make sure that we are more prepared and allow ourselves more filming time.

Peessh Out :)
xxxxxx