Evaluation of preliminary
Our preliminary talk was to produce a short video showing
continuity, match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. The
basic plot of our video was to have a character open a door, walk in a room and
sit down in a chair then have brief dialogue with another character. Our idea
was to have one character playing a boss and firing the other character, the
employee.
Personally I think our filming went well as everything was put in
chronological order so it makes sense to the audience, the story line is also
very clear. We also stuck to the 180 degree rule which went along the side of
the wall that they were sat against. Some challenges that we had to deal with
were background noise of students walking past and in and out of the room we
were filming in but overall there were no big problems to face.
To show the difference in importance we gave the boss (Mia) a
larger office chair and we gave the employee (Anni) a smaller chair which made
her look smaller and more powerless.
Another way we made the characters look more important or less
important was by costume, the boss looked very smart and well put together
whereas the employee was dressed less smart in a casual shirt. This also puts
across the audience that they are different in class and also puts across
an idea of why she is getting fired.
We also used camera angles to
make the boss look more important for example when we filmed the over shoulder
shot looking at the boss in a low angle which makes her look bigger and as if
she is looking down on the employee, whereas the employee was made to look less
important and powerless as she had a high angle shot which created the effect
of her being looked down on by the boss.
We used an IPhone to take our videos, we chose this because it has
a clearer image and is easy to use, and the only problem was that some of the
film is a bit shaky because it was handheld. Most of our shots are in focus and
clear which made the video better quality. There is one shot which is out of
focus, because the picture is bad quality it looks out of place with the rest
of the film.
We used a range of different shot types to make the film look more
interesting , are range of shots contain mid shots, close ups, tracking shots,
long shots, extreme close up, two shots and panning shots.
The lighting is lit in the background but not directly over the
characters, this means that it is light enough to film but not too light to
shine off their face making it harder to see their features.
The only props we used were
the folders, the table and chairs, we used limited props to make the setting
quite boring like a work place and also so it was easier to keep good
continuity and not over exaggerate the set.
Most of the time you can only see one character so that you can
see the reaction better instead of trying to focus on both characters, the two
shots we took are of dialogue which tells the audience which character to focus
on so it is less confusing.
We used I Movie to edit our video. The main parts we needed to
edit were cutting parts out because nothing was happening or someone was
speaking for example in one shot, Natasha said “go” at the beginning of the
shot she was filming to tell the actors to start which we needed to cut out. We
also added some transitions such as crossfade to stop the clips from jumping
and make it a smoother transition although most of our transitions are straight
cuts. We found the editing stage quite easy to get the hang of and complete to
a god quality and continuity.
During editing we were able to check for continuity and sort parts
out that didn’t fit so that it worked better and looked more developed overall.
I think overall we did a good job on continuity as there are no
obvious mistakes that stand out, we tried really hard to get everything in the
same place for example standing an actor in the same place for different shots
and re takes so that they don’t jump spaces after the transition. We also made
sure that we kept on top of match on action for example the page that the
folder is open on is the same in all scenes and you can see the page clearer
when there is a close up of the folder shutting in the same position and page
as It was in the previous shot.
We stuck to the 180 degree rule which was going between Anni and
Mia from one to another, we did this by staying on one side of the invisible
line at all times and filming from the same side of a shoulder in the over
shoulder shots.
Some of the most successful parts of our preliminary was the fact
that it makes sense all put together, we also have good continuity. If I was to
re take this again I would make sure that all shots were in focus and make the
camera less shaky by using a dolly or a tripod. It could also help if we were
in a quieter setting even though the sound of students and staff walking past
gives the impression of a public place of a work place so it adds to the
effect.
I have learned that filming and editing take a lot more time than
I thought they would, we also got to practice different shots and focus a lot
on continuity which has prepared us for our thriller opening task as it gives
us an idea of what it will be like and what we need to look out for to get
higher marks.
