Georgia Johnson: Evaluation Question 7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

There are many things we have learnt since out preliminary task such as:

1. The whole point of the preliminary task was to show our understanding of continuity editing but we focused too much on trying make the short clip enjoyable to watch and ended up not actually completing the task properly. We included jump cuts for a comedic effect which made it seem like we didn't understand the various continuity concepts we should have included which were shot reverse shot and match on action. We did include one example of shot reverse shot but it wasn't established enough.

Jump cuts from our preliminary task

2. Our preliminary task also included wobbly camera shots due to the camera being handheld which wasn't an intentional effect. This is seen right at the beginning of the clip. In 'Locked In', our shots are a lot smoother, particularly the tracking shots which is what a number of people picked up on during our audience feedback. Most of our shots were filmed using a tripod which helped us gain a lot more control and made our opening look a lot more professional. We only ever used handheld camera for a purpose i.e. to suggest Bonnie was in a hurry as she was running to get to the experiment in time.

Smooth tracking shot from 'Locked In'

3. We also learnt that muting the soundtrack from the footage and replacing it with sound effects we found from sound libraries helps to reduce the issue of background noise. Our preliminary task has a lot of background noise such as muttering from people passing by which distracts the audience's attention and generally ruined the tone we were trying to set. A lot of the sound in 'Locked In' was either muted or replaced by other sound effects which I think successfully caused the soundtrack to sound a lot smoother. Examples of this are the pen click, the pouring of the water and the bubblegum pop.

Sound effects added into soundtrack

4. By using Adobe After Effects, we were able to create a lot more interesting titles compared to our preliminary task which includes quite plain iMovie title effects. We were able to portray a lot more with our 'Locked In' titles and generally create a bigger impact by the end.