Preliminary task

Preliminary Task:

Our preliminary task followed the basic guideline of the 180 degree rule. This states that two characters in the same scene should always have the same right to left relationship with each other. This means if the camera is filming over the left shoulder of one character it should then move to be filmed over the right shoulder of the other character, this is to make the scene look ordinary.

We found it rather difficult to achieve a good standard match on action shot as the timing had to be precise otherwise the motion would be distorted. Match on action is to connect two shots cut together by having a character finish an action in shot A which is then begun in shot B. For example shot A may be a person opening a door and then shot B the character walking through the door.

Our match shot showed a close up of a character opening the door. The close up showed only her hand on the handle, proceeding to open the door. This then cut to a long shot of the character entering through the door.

opening the door

Entering through the door

Before filming, my group and i created a rough story board and a script to accommodate the idea of the short film. We had many different ideas but all settled on a simple piece which required the basic shots needed in the piece. Filming our preliminary took us around 30 minutes, however when watching the footage back we realised our 180 degree angles weren't completely in sync with each other. We decided to take the next media lesson to re-film and we managed to get enough good footage to create our final preliminary piece.

We believe that through this task we developed our editing skills and our understanding of how to use the equipment effectively. This task really helped us to gage an idea of what camera angles and techniques our thriller will need to be completely successful.