Preliminary Task

Our preliminary task was to film a continuity sequence consisting of a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting opposite another character with whom he or she has a short conversation.

1) Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?

I worked on this task with Tanya, Nick and Simon so there was a balance of girls and boys, and we all worked very well together. As soon as we got into our group, we immediately began to brainstorm ideas for possible scenarios we can film considering the limited time and space we had. We all contributed to this, finally narrowing our ideas down to a conversation between a teacher and student, or two school friends. After all agreeing on our final idea of a conversation between two friends, we decided on the setting, which was the Media block itself for convenience. We then decided on who was going to undertake which task on the day of the shooting. Tanya and I were willing to split the roles of the Director, Production Assistant and Sound Technician between us, whilst Nick and Simon agreed to be the actors.
As a group, we thought of ideas for a short and simple script, which Nick and Simon then wrote up, and we planned our shots. With about 16 shots to begin with, we each did one page of the storyboard. We had to plan an extra meeting during our free periods to finish things off completely so that we were all ready for the shooting day.
On the day although we had our set roles, we swapped for some shots so that Tanya, Simon and I all got a chance at filming, whilst Nick was in mostly all the shots. This worked very well as we all got a little but useful taste of the different roles within the filming industry and how they each work.

2) How did you plan your sequence? What process did you use?

After deciding on a scenario, we planned our sequence by deciding on our shots and placing them in chronological order. We made sure our shots were simple, using mainly an LS for the master shot and MS/MCU for the rest of the shots with one CU. We also had to make sure that there were no continuity breaks and that all the shots made sense. We then transferred this information onto a storyboard drawing four shots each and filling out the appropriate detail (Shot no., Shot type, time, edit etc.).

In order to be efficient as well as for the director’s convenience, we re-arranged our shots into a shooting script, which presented the shots in the order that we were going to shoot them. We decided to film all our classroom shots first as the corridor was going to be used by the other group first. We also did a brief walk through what we were going to do on the day of production.


3) What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?

We used cannon HV30 camcorder and a tripod to film the sequence. We also used a handheld microphone and headphones for the sound check. It was the director’s job to carry out the following process before they began to film:
-Camera ready?
-Sound ready?
-Camera Rolling!
[Clapperboard held for 5 secs]
-Action!
[Hold for a few extra seconds at the end of scene- this is essential when it comes to editing the clip]
-Cut!

This was a useful process to check that all the equipment was ready and that everyone knew what they were meant to be doing and when.



4) What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?

-When planning our shots we had to consider the continuity techniques that we were going to use such as match on action so that our shot types made sense in that particular order.
- We also had to consider the number of shots we were planning to use to make is as simple as possible and we also decided to use as little camera movement as possible.
-We had to consider the weather: whether we should shoot coming from outdoors or just indoors
- Another factor we had to take into account to do with the setting was planning from which door the actor would walk in, and where they would sit making sure we did not break the 180◦ rule. For this we did a walk through.

-When shooting we had to consider the limited time we had and therefore act efficiently following the shooting script.
- We also had limited members of the group so we split the roles of actors, director, production assistant and sound technician between us, swapping if necessary.
-Other groups were using the same set as us, and so this was another factor to consider. We decided to film in the classroom first while they used the corridor, and then swap over.
- The noise level of the media block was also taken into account as other people are always working there. However, this was not so much of a problem as everyone was quite co-operative.

-When editing we had to consider the continuity techniques whilst cutting our shots for example so the match on actions follow on smoothly.
- We also had to consider which ones we were going to reuse for example the master shot so that we could cut it instead of trim it, and the ones which we only need once which we could trim.




5) How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently?

I thought that overall, our sequence was quite successful, as it looked realistic with no major breaks in the continuity. We managed to stick to the brief using a range of continuity techniques. I think our match on action from MCU to CU of the hand pushing door handle worked quite well. I also think the shot reverse shot is successful in presenting the conventional conversation scene with an interesting OTS of Nick reading the comic in between. We also stuck to the 180◦ rule. There is however a slight continuity error when Nick turns the page which we could have improved with a better match on action. If we had more takes of the shot, then we could have tried matching it with another shot as well. When looking back at it, we also found that although the lines were said clearly, there was a lot of camera noise present which sounded unprofessional. In hindsight we could improve the sound by recording atmosphere over the camera sound. This might make it more realistic.

6) What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of you foundation coursework do you think?

This task has been a great learning process as it is the first proper time I have had such experience with personally using such professional equipment as well as working around the limitations.

Firstly I learnt that in order to produce a successful shot sequence thorough pre-production planning is essential, even more important than the production itself. A story board is very useful during the shoot as it helps you visualize the shot before you act/ film it. It is also the most useful when it comes to ordering and editing your shots, post-production, as it helped us order the shots more efficiently and always meant we knew what we were doing. The Shooting script is something I have not used before, but it was very helpful when filming as it meant we did things systematically under the timed conditions. It was also very easy to follow. I think for me, the shooting script and storyboard prove to be a must when it comes to our foundation coursework, something we should work on almost immediately after coming up with our idea.

I also learnt a lot when shooting and how it is essential to look back over your shots until you take the perfect shot. It is always a good idea to take more than one shot as I found with our ‘turning the page’ match on action, as you never things will work out when editing. The more choice you have, the safer you are! I also learnt a lot about the different roles within filming industry and what they do, for example how it is the directors duty to state what is happening clearly ‘Camera rolling/Cut’ etc, as we hadn’t used this full process before. This will be really helpful in our final coursework as it means that we will work in a professional manner with everything in check, and with clear communication between actors and other members. We hadn’t used the sound equipment either which was also very helpful especially for us as we learnt how sensitive it is and how much camera sound it picks up as well. This is good as now we know to consider this when planning our real coursework and finding a way to get passed this.

What I was extremely happy with was finally working out how to use the editing software as I had very little last year. This time we all took turns in editing and I feel much more confident, just in time for the real coursework! I mainly used the cutting and trimming tool. I also used the zoom button to view the timeline in more detail. When editing I saw that the master shot was extremely important when editing as it was repeated and so brought all our shots together.

Finally I leant to keep it simple as this is what makes it work!