Evaluation of Preliminary Task

What planning did you do for your filming task, and how did this planning aid the filming?

              

       To plan for our filming, our group talked together to discuss what ideas we had, and to decide what we wanted to do and to get a general sense of direction for this task. We then created storyboards, starting with what camera angles we were going to use and where we wanted to shoot them (our locations). From this, we compiled a shot list – including what camera angles we were going to use, the locations of where these shots will be filmed, and who will be in these shots. We used this shot list to aid us during our filming to guide us in shooting our task in an effective and systematic way. This allowed us to keep continuity throughout our shots as we filmed them chronologically – meaning there wasn't a big difference from one shot to another as they were filmed in order, so there weren't any changes in the setting which would affect the continuity of our shots. As we only filmed over one day we didn't have any continuity issues with factors of our production such as costume. Although, as our original footage was lost, our shot list and storyboards do not mirror our final product as we had to film it again so we changed some of the shots – and as a member of our group moved, we had to have someone else be in our shots, so we changed most features; like the subject of the conversation, the people in the shots and the camera angles that we used. 

What is the 180 degree rule, and how is this rule important to the filming task?

The 180⁰ rule is a basic guideline in film making which states that 2 characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. This means that the two ‘subjects’ should always be shot on one side of an ‘imaginary line’ as to make sure that the characters always stay on the same side (left or right) in each scene. This rule is important to our film making task as we need to make sure we have continuity in our product – therefore if we did not keep to the 180⁰ rule then the ‘subjects’ would keep switching which sides of the shot they are on in each individual shot. This would cause confusion and disorientate the audience, so it is important to our filming task that we keep to the 180⁰ rule.

What shot types and camera angles did you use in your filming task, and to what effect?

In our final product, we used many different camera angles. We started with a low angle shot of ‘actor 1’s legs to show the beginning of a journey – which creates a sense of urgency, as the subject moves past the stationary camera fairly swiftly. We also used a close up of ‘actor 1’ on the way to the location of our conversation in our project, as to show their emotion before the conversation happens – to contrast to the mid shot we use of ‘actor 1’ after the conversation. In our project, we also used a point-of-view shot of ‘actor 1’ going to open the pod door (where the conversation takes place). This is effective as the shot is a little bit shaky- due to being a hand-held shot as well -  as it is reflective of ‘actor 1’s mind set as they are anticipating what is about to happen with ‘actor 2’. For the conversation part of our project, we primarily used shot-reverse shot between ‘actor 1’ and ‘actor 2’ to show who is talking, the emotions they portray whilst talking, and their reactions to what the other says. We did this keeping to the 180⁰ rule as to keep up our projects continuity.  We also used close up’s of both ‘actor 1’ and ‘actor 2’ after the conversation - separately - as to show the emotions they are now portraying after their confrontation. This is effective as it reinforces the change of mood that runs throughout the shots.

 What editing skills have you developed? How confident are you with using the editing programme?

        During the editing stage of our project, I have developed skills of effectively picking which clips are best to use, cutting the unusable parts out and editing all of the clips together to make a fluent, consistent product. I also developed skills of using the editing effects in an effective way. For example, for the majority of the conversation part of our project we edited it to black and white as to show the seriousness and drama of the conversation topic. We had a clip that we wanted to use the whole of, but only wanted the second half in slow motion; so we used the razor tool to split the two parts of the clip –but so it still flows without any jumps between parts – and then changed the speed of the second part. Another example is that we had 2 clips that go after one another, but realised there was a jump to ‘actor 1’ standing up in one of the clips, to her sitting down in the next. Therefore, we used a fade to white transition as so the 2 clips still had fluency and didn't seem to jump from one to another too much. This was also effective as the first clip was in colour, and the second clip was the first of our shots of the conversation edited to black and white; so the fade to white transition didn't only help with the fluency of the possible continuity problem, but also make the change from colour to black and white less harsh. I feel okay with using this editing programme, but not too confident as I probably still need to experiment with how to use other effects and how fitting they would be for the subject or style of our projects.