3. Preliminary Task Evaluation

Quality of summary	My honest evaluation – what was done well and what was not of good standard? Try to cite specific examples and moments from your video	Examples of strategies, good practices and skills that my group and I will put into place to ensure a main production of high quality.
Quality of holding a shot steady	To begin we had our actor run up a set of stairs, unlocking it and going through a doorway. In terms of camera work, the actor was walking into frame. However going up the stairs the footage became very shaky and even post photography in editing, the eagle was even too much to be fixed using software stabilisation. Even despite using the tripod to minimise this it wasn't enough. The other shots (apart from one) didn't require tracking and shot steadiness was not a problem.	We will be investing in an inexpensive camera stabiliser which will drastically help improve the stability of our footage. We could go as far as using Steadicam rigs, gimbals or drones but a high production budget is something we do not have. Good practices would consist of constantly analysing our footage and capturing multiple takes of possible.
Quality of the framing of shots	In general our character positioning in frame was at a standard level with the exception of one or two moments where our initial character during the dialogue was too far out of the frame. Using the rule of thirds concept also helped out shot framing quality where we would ensure for example a character's face would cross over one of the points.	In the long run a more visually descriptive storyboard would help us as a team get the right idea of what we want into our heads. I drew the storyboard and as a group it would be useful to analyse storyboards from high production value films to see what we need to change.
Quality of shooting material appropriate to the task set, i.e. the content of your film pre and post editing was consistent with the exam directives	We were more or less on task with the required scripting elements, however there was a bit of confusion with the 'shot, reverse shot’ section where we ended up having four lines of back and forth dialogue within one continuous shot. We thought this would help create a flow to the scene and slow the pace down from the fast tracking and previous cuts.	Good organisation and time management will allow us to set timeout to really understand what we have been told to do and what is required of us.
Quality of selecting mise-en-scene including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting	We managed to get a blazer for the 'boss’ to wear to help establish his character to the audience as very formally dressed and serious. He also had his folders and phone out to show he has a very busy character. The other character was more of a worker for the boss who would go and run his errands for him. Here we had him wear more casual clothing (hoodie, bag). As time was very tight (and we'll work on that through planning) and we weren't so flexible with our location, being it a school with restrictions) lighting and other objects were hard to obtain or change.	We will spend plenty of time planning what outfit our characters will be wearing and what else will be in the frame.
Quality of editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer	Out of the three in our group I was chosen to edit the footage which was done at home. The only limitation this left us with was the ability for the others to see first hand what I was doing. However we we able to discuss what we were trying to achieve with what we had and in the end it didn't turn out bad but neither was it up to our standards. For example there is an edit that does not appear continuous where the sign on the door saying “The Fish” was out of focus. To tackle this I had to take another shot that was in focus but that had different lighting and positions so it didn’t fit well regardless of that we thought it best to be able to read it than not especially as it was part of the criteria we had to meet. Overall the meaning would've been conveyed to the viewer. I was able to also show continuity in the scene during the over the shoulder and reverse shot of the character coming through the door. And this was down to the camera man recording extra seconds before and after the event has taken place and the actor being able to match on action.	Organise time for us to be able to edit together. The media rooms are available but final cut can be tedious to use.
Quality of using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set	We chose to use the instrumental track to the song Wet 'Dreamz' by J Cole as we needed a backing track that was upbeat and mellow at the same time and brought up by Sam we decided on that. And this song was perfect and fits well as our character runs up the stairs we know he’s in a rush, the music helps emphasise this. It also continues to when he then walks through the door and fades out into diagetic sound as the dialogue begins. I could say that because we didn't use an external mic (smartphone) the audio quality was a bit poor in terms of hearing the dialogue well and so we had to increase that in editing which would result in a faint hiss.	Dubbing over the video would help keep the volume levels constant however this could lead to problems if syncing is done incorrectly. Methods such as getting room tone and clapping with help with audio control in editing
Quality of positioning and movements of actors	I think we could have had better positioning but I wouldn’t know how to do this.  I just feel like some of the frames aren’t in quite the right place.	Improve through the use of a well planned story board.
Quality of group planning, meeting targets and organisation	I think our planning was way to vague and quick but I feel our group consists of people who understand each other very clearly and can easily tell each other their honest opinions as to whether they like the idea or not. And this helps, but that’s no reason to not plan as much.	We plan to keep in contact and meet out of school hours ( Skype, face to face)
Group dynamics i.e. how did your group work together?	We worked well together, we all understood each other's ideas and all agreed. We also had difficulties, when we first tried to film it we had a different actor and we only had an hour with him and we were silly to spend 30 minutes finding an appropriate set(room) and after 39 minutes we weren’t finished. So we then found another actor and found a better room very quickly and so we had more time to do it and it ended up better than the first attempt as we knew what not to do. Other than unfortunate timing with actors and room availability we worked pretty well and quite quickly considering the problems we faced.
Other points of evaluation (e.g. equipment related, etc)