Kieran Davies
Preliminary exercise evaluation
Introduction
For our preliminary exercise evaluation we had to film somebody
walking down a hallway through a door and then exchanging dialogue
with another person. Whilst doing the task we had to think about the
180 rule, match on action and shot reverse shot, making the overall
piece a continuity edit.
Pre-filming
Firstly we got put in groups and decided on what shots we would use in
our preliminary exercise. We used a number of shots; firstly we used a
wide shot to establish the setting and surroundings of the character.
Next we used a mid-shot to show more detail of the characters upper
body and facial expressions. After this we used a low angle wide shot to
show the character from another perspective, this may also represent
little power to the character. Next we shot a sequence of shots that
involved APOV, mid shot and extreme close up, this came together to
form a match on action sequence. Lastly the last shots we agreed to
shoot were shot reverse shot using APOV. Whilst planning this, we
decided where the camera was going to be positioned in each shot.
A list of all the shots used: APOV, wide shot, mid shot, close up, POV, low
angle wide shot, Dutch tilt and extreme close up.
Filming
Our original plans needed adjusting to suit the filming location; this was
due to being allocated a different filming location than our plans were
designed for. We added in an additional APOV, as there were a set of
stairs we needed to include to get to the room we were filming the
dialogue in. In the original plans there were no stairs so this is a decision
that had to be made there and then, to make sure that the shot
complimented the stairs. As we used an APOV, it showed the actor
moving in sync with the camera. The Dutch tilt we used also was decided
on the day of filming to make the shot look mysterious and obscure.
Kieran Davies
Editing
During the editing process we found out that not all the shots fitted
perfectly together, we didn’t have to get rid of any shots as all the shots
we filmed fitted together making sense. However there was a problem
with the audio on one of the dialogue shots, so we had to get a piece of
‘wild track’, and place it in the exact position of the bad audio which we
scrapped. I thought that we were successful with creating a smooth flow
of continuity, as the shots fit together flowing from shot to shot. We
achieved match on action by combining mid shot of the character
reaching for the handle, an extreme close up and Dutch tilt of the door
handle. The Dutch tilt made the shot look more unique and obscure
adding a sense of mystery, making the match on action look better, as
the match on action was much faster paced than anywhere else in the
final edit.
We achieved the shot reverse shot by using APOV and APOV to show
clearly that the two characters were having a conversation. The shot
reverse shot is there to show the two sides of the conversation.
Throughout the filming and editing process we had to constantly think
about the 180 degree rule, this is because it would watch be uneasy to
watch. For example if somebody exits left and you break the 180 rule
they would enter right. We avoided this by splitting the room the
dialogue was filmed in, into two and stuck to the one side of the
imaginary line. I believe that our film would be from a thriller film, this is
mainly influenced by the music we added at the end in the editing
process, called ‘awkward meeting’ which we downloaded off of
‘incomputech.com’. The music is fairly high pitch making it a bit jumpy,
but it builds up to the climax, which a typical thriller film would do, in
our case it is when the two characters exchange dialogue.