Evaluation of Preliminary Task

This is our prelim task. I think it worked out pretty well in the end, actually.

1) My group consisted of me (Robbie), Eva, Jess R and Odelia. We assigned the roles evenly while shooting, and made sure each person had a chance to direct and operate the sound. Me and Eva were the actors in the shoot, so obviously Odelia and Jess did a lot more directing. However, we all spent time organising the room before and during shooting, to suit our needs.

Here is a picture of me with my group, and the equipment we used.



From left to right: Jess, Me, Eva and Odelia.

2) We planned our sequence with detailed storyboards and a shooting list to keep ourselves organised. Even though the script was very short, we still decided to get it on paper to avoid any errors. All of this was done in order to stay organised, reducing continuity mistakes in the final shoot. Also, after setting up at the location, ran through the scene several times, making sure we repeated our actions exactly each time to keep the continuity sharp. We discovered that this really helped us in the editing room afterwards.

Here is our script and shooting schedule that we used on the day:
Media Script and Schedule Prelim

And here is the first page of our storyboard:

1C - Storyboard Page 1

Theories taken into account:

- Continuity Theory
  for example:

- The 180 degrees rule, particularly important in conversations and OTS shots
- The 30 degrees rule
- Eyeline matching
- Match on action
- Shot-reverse-shot

- Levi-Strauss and binary opposites
  for example:

- Girl vs. Boy
- Seller vs. Buyer
- Sides of the table
- Certain vs. Uncertain

- Barthes theory- enigma and action codes.

- We set up enigma with my entrance and opening lines of dialogue. 'Have you got it?' sets up enigma, as does her response 'Where's the money?'. Even as the film is resolved, much enigma remains- why did he pay £10 for a banana?

3) We used cameras given to us by the school, a clapperboard, a microphone for crisper audio capturing on set, a tripod, and our storyboarding for referencing while shooting. We also used an edit suite provided by the school, and were working with Adobe Premier Pro CS3 on a double monitor. Here is a picture of our edit suite.



4) Factors we had to take into account while:

Planning

- Time frame, how long we had and how much we could shoot
- Length of finished project.
- Availability of location
- How appropriate the location was
- Continuity rules
- How ambitious we were being when selecting shots to shoot
- Shot distances and if they would look natural when edited together
- Deciding on props and who would supply

Shooting

- Lighting, trying to keep in constant between shots
- Distancing of camera
- The 180 degrees rule
- Eye line matching by positioning the camera
- Audio- can it be heard? We used the microphone on the camera and headphones to make sure
- Background noise (we actually had to tell a nearby class to be quiet!)
- Acting - convincing?
- Weather
- Mise-en-scene stays constant and uncluttered
- Keeping the scene the same every time we shot
- Props, making sure we brought them in and used them in the same way every time.

Editing

- We had to consider continuity theory
- Timings of shots
- Types of cut- transitions? Clean cuts?
- Lengths of shots
- 180 degrees rule
- Shot reverse shot

5) I think our finished project was really good and worked really well. The continuity was generally excellent, and i believe that we managed to create a sense of believability which was maintained throughout the scene. I think the location was good, and the editing provided a nice sense of enigma at the beginning of the scene. We used simple shots, nothing flashy, and i believed this paid off.

I think the BCU's of mine and Eva's faces we used didn't quite match the action. They looked slightly out of place when edited in, and it interrupted the flow of the scene. I think it was because the distances jumped too much, it looked odd cutting from an OTS shot straight to one of my face.

It wasn't a disastrous mistake, and certainly did not ruin our project, but it is something which we can note down and improve upon next time. Learn from our mistakes and all that.

6) I have learnt from this task the importance of continuity when film making. And more importantly, how you need to be thinking about the continuity from the earliest planning stages, in order for it to be implemented into our films effectively. Also, i've learnt that the rules of camera work are extremely important in making a successful and believable film.

This was a really good introduction to this idea of continuity film making, and one which i believe will be very beneficial when making our very own film openings.