A Ball Rolling Off A Table – Evaluation

What went well

In this film I’ve tried to match the shots and length with the music, for example I had some quick cuts of the ball rolling past during the drum fills. I think this worked well as it helped to break up the sequence a bit and add energy to the subject.

The music I chose for this was ‘bat outta hell’ by meatloaf. I think this was a good choice as it’s an up beat track which reflects the momentum and energy I was trying to convey.

After the ball reaches the edge of the table I use a number of ‘flicker cuts’ to build the suspension, these increase in speed to match the music.

The shot of the ball stopping at the edge of the table I think looked good and worked really well. We filmed the ball rolling back from the edge and then reversed the clip. This is a good example of some of the logistical problems we had while filming and how we overcame them.

We had originally planned a more detailed story which we decided to change to keep a lot simpler. This I think was a good idea as it meant we could focus more on the shots we used and less about the narrative, resulting in a crisper film that flowed relatively smoothly.

What could’ve gone better

Because we did some of our filming on different days the aperture and Iso that we used differed slightly resulting in the lighting being slightly different from clip to clip. I corrected it as much as I could using colour correction but there is still some noticeable difference. This could of been avoided by planning more accurately what settings we wanted to use and taking into account how much the image would change.

The slow mo at the end of the film was quite difficult to do as the ball falls very quickly and 50fps wasn’t high enough to get the speed and effect we wanted. In the future we will have to take into account the ability of the camera and there fore the limitations it provides.

The shot of the ball rolling towards the camera was very tricky as we had to adjust the focus while filming. Also there is a limit as to how close the ball can be while still being able to focus on it clearly. To combat this we could do more test shots and planning to find out exactly what’s possible and how we can adjust the camera or shot to make it work.

Towards the end of the film there is a flicker sequence of the ball on the edge in time to the music. It may be personal preference but I feel it went on a bit too long. This is because the bit I wanted to use in the music for this section was quite far on in the track. I had already cut a bit out of the middle in order to make it fit and arrive there sooner. Once I had timed all my clips though I then started to think it was still too long and it was too late to change it. To avoid this I need to make sure I have a good idea of how long I want each section to last so that it makes editing much easier.