Preliminary Task Reflection

1. Reflection On The
Preliminary Task
Josh Pyne

2. What was the task
O 180 degree rule
O • Match on action
O • Shot reverse shot
O • Conversation and walking into a room and sitting down
O • Parallel editing
O • Graphic match
O • Consideration of framing – range of shot types
O • Range of angles
O • Consideration of lighting
O • Tracking/panning – movement
O • Consideration of mise en scene – costumes, gestures, expressions,
setting
O • Enigma codes and action codes
The task was to produce a short film with the following
technical criteria:

3. Planning
The task was planned very poorly,
with little to virtually no script at all.
Things like character names and
motives were un-decided. The whole
project was done on seconds notice
(basically no notice at all), and no
planning was contributed by any one.

4. Group Contribution
Again there was no effort put in by most of the
members, also communication between the
group was kept to a minimum (Surprised we
know each others names…) Fortunately me and
one other group member attempted to pull the
task back together but with limited time,
resources, inconsistent shots, no help from the
others and inadequate contribution by more
than half of the group we were (two of us)
unable to finish the task to a high standard
worthy of calling acceptable.

5. Development of creative ideas
At the start, end and throughout ideas where
only contributed by less than fifty percent of the
group meaning our group was extensively held
back. The whole time communication was
between me and another member, other
members were usually busy on phones, or
earphones in and listening to music not
contributing and not even following instructions
to a level of satisfaction. Ideas were not scripted
or written down and to my amazement we
actually had a plot… (Surprised we even got
that far)

6. What went well on the shoot?
Nothing, that’s right nothing at all. With only
me and another group member responding
to the task effectively we were held back.
This caused us to slow down the production
speed to less than twenty percent I would
say. Surprisingly we did manage to get
some good shots and edit those into some
pretty sequences but those were in short
supply as more than half of the group did
not respond to the task as adults more like
children.

7. What went wrong?
O Uncooperative group members, more than
half of the group was uncooperative.
O No script to follow, everything was done
on spot if not done at all.
O Bad communication to what to film and
ideas about the characters and motives.
O No contribution by more than half the
group meant that the production speed
was terrifically slow.

8. What have I learnt in terms of how you will
run the shoots for your film opening?
O Create a sturdy script to follow to allow easy
navigation of scenes, characters, motives, ideas,
and ideas.
O To choose better group members, or work
independently.
O Split workload, everyone in the group is assigned
tasks to keep busy with so the production speed is
fast and efficient
O No or little messing around.

9. What did I learn about how thinking about
editing can help when I am actually
shooting the footage
O Planning editing in a script is very
effective also different shots of the same
scene can help make variations to choose
between when one shot doesn’t work out
O More shots is better than less.