Preliminary Task: Evaluation

I am very happy with the end result of our preliminary task video. We applied the various filming techniques to the actions we had to include and, I believe, we succeeded in doing so. The video was filmed smoothly and was edited in a way that strengthened the professional approach we sought out to achieve.

For the dialogue, we chose one we had previously looked at in class but altered it slightly to ensure our video was original. If we were to do this task again and had more time, I would suggest we wrote an entirely new and original dialogue. I am extremely happy with who we cast to play the characters in our video. Caoimhe and Rainbow are both A-level Drama students and they definitely exceeded our expectations. They fully immersed themselves in their roles and were very convincing actresses.

The actual filming and editing of this task didn't take very long as everybody in our group were very focused and conscientious. Filming the video was very straight forward as everybody in our group cooperated and had the same vision. The planning process was the most time-consuming part of this project. It took a relatively long time to find an appropriate duologue and casting actors for our characters proved quite difficult.

We did not complete a risk assessment as our video was filmed in a very safe environment and the actions our characters carried out did not pose any immediate risks.

I believe the filming techniques we used were effective and added to the atmosphere of the video. We used the compulsory techniques (180-degree rule, match on action and shot/reverse shot) as we saw these as most important. Our group agreed that we did not want to add more in unnecessarily as we really wanted to focus on the essentials. I do believe we could have perhaps emphasised the 180-degree rule technique a little more, but other than that I am very happy with the techniques we used and how we applied them.

The target audience for this video is mainly teenagers, so we showed it to a few of our friends. They all really liked it and appreciated the fact that the actresses were also peers. This made it appear more life like and they were able to empathise.


Although I am generally pleased with the outcome, there are a few changes that, when looking back, I would change. At one point, I film through one side of the window and focus on Caoimhe. Here, the light in the room creates a reflection and the camera is then visible for the audience to see. Later in the video, there are a few people in the background of shots where they are not needed, as well as unwanted noises from surrounding classrooms. Unfortunately, we did not notice these errors until after editing so we were not able to go back and re-film due to timing issues. This has encouraged us to always look back over our clips in detail before finishing up so that we can avoid this in the future.