This document discusses the author's learning and improvement in camera work and editing skills through completing preliminary and main filmmaking tasks. For the preliminary task, the author learned new camera angles and shots as well as editing techniques. They then applied these skills to a project recreating an opening sequence from Arlington Road, where they gained experience with Final Cut Express, titles, and sound editing. For the main task, the author was responsible for planning, filming, and editing the opening titles and sequence for an original thriller film. Through this process, the author learned about important pre-production elements like location planning, risk assessment, and audience research.

1. What I Have Learnt &
Improvement In Camera
Work and Editing
By Farida Pashi

2. What I Knew Before The
Preliminary Task
Before the Preliminary task my
camera work and editing skills were
limited. All I knew how to do was just
the basics of filming and editing such
has how to record videos, put them
together and add a few effects and
transitions to the video clips and add
music to the video.

3. What We Had To Do For The
Preliminary Task
For the preliminary task we had to film
and edit a character doing the
following:
 Opening a door
 Crossing a room
 Sitting down opposite another
character
 Characters exchange a few lines of
dialogue

4. What I Learnt After The
Preliminary Task
After the preliminary task i learnt how to capture a range of different camera angles and shots with
a Flip HD Camera and gathered new editing skills on IMovie HD. For example i learnt the
following shots and angles:
 Extreme Long Shot/ Establishing Shot - Used to set up, or establish the context for a scene by
showing the location/setting
 Long Shot - Shows the relationship between the characer/actor and the setting/location
 Mid/Medium-Shot - To show body angle and encourage the audiencec to become familiar with
the character/audience
 Two-shot - Show the relationship between two people
 Close-up Shot - This shot tightly frames a character/actor or an object/prop
 Extreme Close-up Shot - To draw attention to emotion in the character/actors face
 Low Angles - To make the character/actor or object seem more powerful
 High Angles - To make the figure/actor/character or object seem vulnerable or powerless.
I also learnt the following techniques:
 Match in action - Giving a series of continuous action between time and space
 Shot/Reverse shot - Filming from one angle and then filming from the reverse
 180degree rule - Filming on one side of the 'imaginary line'
In terms of editing i learnt a range of new things for example:
 How to cut clips shorter using a short cut on the keyboard which is Command X
 How to import into IMovie which is Command I
 How to export out of IMovie which we did using insctructions from Simon's Blog

5. Arlington Road Project And What I
Learnt
Before our main task we did another project to create an opening sequence similar
to the one for Arlington Road using Final Cut Express and we did this in order to
learn how to use Livetype, Soundtrack and Final Cut Express. I learnt the
following things from this:
 I learnt a lot about what shots we could use in our genre of film, thriller. We used
a lot of close ups and point of view shots.
 I also learnt how to use many effects like changing the colour of the shots,
negative and and invert.
 I also learnt how to render on final cut express, you simply select the clip the
you want to render then press the apple command key and then the R key on the
key board to render.
 I learnt how to download fonts and create titles using LiveType and also how to
add effects to the titles such as 'Shake' and 'Ripple'. I also learnt how to export
to Final Cut Express without pre-rendering which is done by saving the titles and
then draging the livetype symbol at the top of the project out while clicking
Ctrl+Tab and then select Final Cut Express and drop the symbol onto it
 I also learnt how to edit the titles while still in Final Cut Express which is done by
right clicking the titles and clicking open in editor and when you have changed it
it can be saved and it will automatically change in Final Cut Express.
 I also learned how to loop a static noise sound in Soundtrack and also a loop of
the word amazing which we thought sounded ominous repeated over and over
but in the end it didnt create the type of effect we wanted it to create.

6. What We Had To Do For Our Main
Task
For our main task we had to do the following:
 Create the titles and opening of a new fiction thriler film to last a
maximum of two minutes (no less than one minute forty-five seconds)
 All video material must be original and produced by the candidate with
the exception of music or audio effects from a free copyright source
 ---> The presentation of the research, planning and evaluation will
take form of a blog which will have a minimum of 56 posts and include
various creative presentation methods such as:
 Annotated Youtube Clips
 Graphs &/or Charts
 Prezis
 Still Images
 Animatics
 Powerpoint Slides
 Screen Grabs
 Annotated Poster/ Picture
 ----> Research & Planning = 20 marks
 ----> Construction = 60 marks
 ----> Evaluation = 20 marks

7. What I Have Learnt About
Planning
I have also learnt a lot about how to plan out how
a film is shot in very different pre-production
lessons, i have learnt about the areas that need
to be planned for for example:
 The location/setting
 Risk Assesment of the location
 Props and Costumes
 The location/filming schedule
 The breakdown sheet of where we will be at
what time of day and what is needed etc..
 The target audience research
 Pitch of Storyline ideas and other things such as
audience demographic and main characters