Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom he/she them exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. The task should demonstrate match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.
Preliminary Task:
Opening Sequence Final Product 'Pretty Popular':
Planning for the preliminary task:
- First we decided on a location, we chose an empty classroom nearby our media department as we knew this would be empty, quiet, and easy to carry our equipment to.
- Then we decided on the storyline; we brainstormed a few ideas but quickly narrowed it down to one. Everyone was respectful of other people's ideas and this helped to speed up the process and ensured we did not waste too much time. However, there then was a fair amount of disagreement over who would act in our piece. There was no fighting but a considerable amount of time was wasted doing this when we could have been planning.
- Next we created a storyboard, everyone took turns in drawing on post it notes and we ordered them on large A3 sugarpaper.
- We also created a script and shot list together as a team.
Shooting the preliminary task:
- When shooting, timing did become an issue, we had to rush our last 3 shots however we still managed to get them done in time.
- We tried to share out roles equally between the four members of our group, so whenever Olivia and Alex.E were not acting, they would film, for example when there was only one of them in shot, or when I was acting near the end. I feel we each got a fair opportunity to act and film.
1st Location (inside room) 2nd Location (outside room)
- We had two locations for our shoot, inside and outside the classroom. In order to save time, we probably should have shot all the outside shots first, then the inside ones. This would have saved time with camera movement for various camera set-ups and could have prevented us from rushing at the end.
Editing the preliminary task:
- We editing our prelim in two groups, myself and Olivia made our own version, and Alex.E and Alex.S made their own. This allowed us all more time editing and reduced the risk of conflict when editing.
- Since Olivia had never used Premier Pro before, this was a good time for her to learn before our real task and allowed me to reinforce some of my skills and jog my memory on the program and teach her the basics.
- We also added a title, and for this we used Adobe Aftereffects.
- Editing was fairly quick and I feel we worked well together.
Benefits of the preliminary task:
- I feel the prelim prepared us for teamwork first and foremost, as up until then during the year most of our work had been individual.
- It also helped to introduce us to the structure of creating a sequence. We first had to plan, shoot, then edit, just like what was required of us for our real opening sequence task.
- In particular, the task also enabled us to practice key continuity rules such as the 180 degree rule, shot-reverse-shot and match on actions.
How we applied what we learnt:
- For our opening sequence we had a similar situation where two people were acting most of the time, and two were not. We were prepared and knew how to delegate roles so everyone got time filming and acting.
- We also edited in twos as we had learnt this was more efficient and time effective.
- Working together as a team was definitely a big part of our project and having experience of working with Olivia definitely helped with this especially since was new to our school.
Overall I feel I have made great progress as a film maker from the prelim task to our final product. We have learnt and more importantly followed all the continuity rules correctly, I have gained confidence and am more familiar with the process of making a film, and finally we produced a professional looking product of which I am very proud of!
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