'Code': My Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task

Summary

For this preliminary task we had to first put ourselves into groups and I am in a group with Lesley, Destinie and Fiona. Once we had organised ourselves into groups, we had to follow the instructions on the sheet below which includes the cinematography for the short film as well as the lines that our actors had to follow. However, we did include some extra footage at the end in order to put a little of our own creativity into this task, making it more personalised.

Sheet showing the details and instructions for our preliminary task.

What went well:

• Our group was firstly successful in choosing a good location for this task. We decided to film in a secluded hall in order to put an emphasis on the isolation of the setting as well as the characters. 
• We were rather time-efficient too which meant that we had more time for editing so we could improve our film. 
• Also, our use of continuity editing was also successful as our use of cinematography ensured that our film flowed well and smoothly with seemingly unnoticeable cuts. 
• The use of our title ('Code') was well-edited into our film, showing how we made effective use of our title.
• It was well-storyboarded as well which meant that when it came to filming we were clear with what we needed to do, such as what shots we needed and where they needed to be filmed. This meant that we did not waste time which later meant that we had more time for editing which made it a more successful piece of work. You can see our storyboard just below:

Above: all of the individual pages of our storyboard.

What we need to improve on:

• Next time we need to be more wary of background noise because at the beginning of our short film there is quite a lot of background noise which came from the outside, such as wind noise which we need to either get rid of or ensure that there is little of this so it is relatively unnoticeable.
• We also need to make sure that we have better lighting next time because during our film the lighting, although only fairly subtle, switches a little with some scenes brighter than others. Next time we need to ensure that we have better lighting that remains the same (unless we have storyboarded otherwise).
• Additionally, we must ensure that when applying the technique of continuity editing, to make this successful, that our actors are in the same positions (according to the storyboard) as the shot before. This is because in our preliminary task, occasionally our actors are in slightly different positions than the previous shot which goes against the rules of continuity editing.
• As well as this, if possible next time we should cast  more professional actors/drama students to act in our film as, even though the skills of our actors for our preliminary task were standard, in order to make our film more realistic, interesting and attention-grabbing for our audience we should have well-skilled actors.

Here is our short film which we produced for this preliminary task: