Preliminary exercise write up.
Pre-filming:
1) The shots we planned to include were;







A close up of a hand tapping their nails to shows character’s anxiety
whilst waiting for character 2 to deliver keys (in room), diegetic sound.
Walking shots of character 2 keeping face hidden, just of feet and
legs. A close up shot of their feet, long shots, low shots, point of view
shot of character reaching the door. Walking to match the tapping of
the character 1’s nails (becomes extra-diegetic sound).
Point of view shot/ over the shoulder shot of character 1 seeing
character two walk past window (also a pan shot)
Close ups of hand opening door and pulling out chair (face hidden)
(match on action)
Dialogue shots obeying 180* rule.
Character 2 passes keys to character 1 slide (pan shot) – match on
action
Character 2 leaving room Mid shot.
2) The purpose of this sequence would be to build tension within the story
and this would be done by keeping the faces hidden. Also as character 2 gets
closer and is then seen by character 1 allows audience anticipation to build.
What the second character is delivering is kept secret until the end which
could make audience think and become interested in what the object is, nonobvious and ‘secret’ dialogue to keep mysterious feel.
Filming
3) Generally we kept to the story boards however we ended up adding more
shots to what we originally planned. For example we added a high angle shot of
character 2 when walking as it gave a variety on the angles but still kept to the
hiding of the face idea. We also filmed more walking shots at various angles to
lengthen the clip.
4) We had to add some extra shots as the overall clip would have been too
short, so we added different shots showing character 2 walking which not only
lengthened the clip but also helped to build up tension. We also added a high
angle shot to keep the face of character 2 hidden but reveal a bit more
information about them. We also added an extra shot as there was a double door
into the room we used so we had to include both doors meaning we had to do
more matches of action. We also added a focus pull in the shot when character 1
sees character 2 walk past the window.
Editing
5) We had to cut a few walking shots as the white balance was not perfect (had
to discard a shot from inside as it was too dark). We didn’t have to cut many
shots out entirely but we did have to cut lots short to ensure shots transitions (e.
matches on action) were smooth and worked well together.
6) I think we were quite successful in making transitions between shots smooth
as we paid careful attention to this whilst editing but also we were thinking about
this issue whilst filming.
7) To achieve matches on action we filmed the shot twice in the exact same way
to make sure we had all the action to allow the match to work perfectly and look
effective.
8) How did achieve shot/reverse/ shots?
9) We kept to the 180* rule by filming all of the characters words in one and then
switching the camera on the other character (from behind the characters shoulder on
the same side of the ‘line’ as the other character’s shoulder which was previously
filmed behind.)
10) The genre of our preliminary exercise was designed to be of a thriller genre
(hence the tension building and mysterious camera techniques eg. Close up finger
tapping, low shots and hidden faces.)