Preliminary task

Preliminary Task - planning

Today we started planning our preliminary task. In my group was myself and Chelsea. We started brain storming ideas for what we wanted to do to complete this task. Here are some of the ideas we had:

• Interrogation scene
• Mum and daughter in the morning
• Two friends

We decided to settle on the mum and daughter scene as the setting, character and costume would be easy to do but would also allow us to be able to show many techniques which we have learnt about.

We set aside a weekend to film the task. We collected all the props a few days before, and left them in my house which is where we would be filming. For characters we asked our friend Katie to play the mother figure and Chelsea would play the girl while I filmed. 

SHIRLEY HIGH SCHOOL MEDIA STUDIES DEPARTMENT

SHOT LIST

LOCATION:Becky's house

PROPOSED FILMING DATE:1st November

Shot no.	Actors	Equipment needed	Costumes	Other	Completed?
1	Katie Sexton	Light to make sure we can see Katie	Bedtime clothes	Setting- bed (close up)	YES
2	Katie’s hand	iPhone	-	Curtains, framing the phone. (extreme close up)	YES
3	Katie	iPhone	-	Bed (over the shoulder shot of phone, close up so we can see the time)	YES
4	-	Bed sheets, dragon on ceiling	-	Bed, worms eye view looking up at the ceiling, bed sheet covers camera to black	YES
5	Katie	Costume! Make sure the lighting is good	SHOES, slippers needed	Close up	YES
6	Katie	Lighting!	-	Props: stuff to make the room look like a bedroom (medium shot)	YES
8	Katie	Tripod!	-	Panning shot of her walking to the door	YES
9	Katie	Light switch	-	Extreme close up (low angle) of switch; make sure to add in sound!	YES
10	Katie	Tripod	-	Medium, still shot	YES
11	Katie	-	-	Extreme close up of door handle, add in sound. MATCH ON ACTION	YES
12	Katie	Tripod	-	MATCH ON ACTION, mid shot	YES
13	Katie	None needed	-	HAND HELD, so shaky showing a point of view of Katie, looking down at her feet	YES
14	Katie, Chelsea	Tripod	Katie in pjs, Chelsea in “everyday” clothing	Mid shot, pan of Katie walking down the hallway	YES
15	Katie, Chelsea	Kitchen equipment, mugs, kettle etc.	-	Over the shoulder shot of Katie, Chelsea watching her	YES
16	Katie	Kettle	-	Extreme close up of kettle switch, add in sound	YES
17	-	Boil kettle, camera on tripod!	-	Extreme close up and zoom into bubbles of boiling water	YES
18	Katie	Mini tripod to hold camera at an upwards angle	-	Extreme close up, low shot looking up at teabag. Katie’s hand dropping in a tea bag to the mug	YES
19	Katie	-	-	Extreme close up of cup, water being poured into it. Add in sound of water!	YES
20	Katie	-	-	Over the shoulder shot of the mug, Katie’s point of view	YES
21	Katie	Milk!	-	Close up, overhead, shot of pouring milk into the cup	YES
22	Katie, Chelsea	Magazine in Chelsea’s hand	Same as before	Mid shot of Katie sitting at the table, Chelsea sitting reading a magazine	YES
23	Katie, Chelsea	-	-	SHOT REVERSE SHOT, Over the shoulder of Katie from Chelsea’s perspective. Make sure the magazine is within the frame – continuity.	YES
24	Katie, Chelsea	-	-	SHOT REVERSE SHOT, over Katie’s shoulder looking at Chelsea, make sure the mug is always in the right place.	YES
25	Katie, Chelsea	-	-	SHOT REVERSE SHOT, Over the shoulder of Katie from Chelsea’s perspective, check all continuity	YES
26	Katie, Chelsea	-	-	Close up, Chelsea looking at where Katie has directed. EYE LINE MATCH	YES
27	-	Glasses!	-	Close up to extreme close up zoom to the glasses. Cut to black!	YES

NOTES:

Need to make sure we set the scene first, remembering to leave out any key props, eg the mugs and glasses so they are in all of the frames to make sure the continuity is continued throughout all of the scenes. If the filming has to be done over several days make sure the costume and make up are always the same to keep it realistic looking. ALSO remember to keep each frame well lit to make sure we can see what is going on even if it’s dark outside.

PRELIMINARY TASK REFLECTION

This was out given task for our preliminary:

·         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 she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

We were given this task to do so we could practice out editing skills as well and applying all the camera techniques we have been learning during lesson time. It was the next step on from what we learnt when filming the practice task by adding some kind of narrative to the story, as well as playing around with Foley sounds. This would help us develop the techniques we needed to create our final project.

To start this task we created a shot list, and from this shot list we were able to draw up a storyboard. We used the storyboard to film all of the scenes; we then muted these scenes during the editing process and added in all of the diegetic and non-diegetic noises we wanted, eg- music, alarm clock and talking.

We were able to film or preliminary task within an hour, this included re filming a few scenes we were not happy with. On the whole the task went very well; we only had a problem when trying to interpret the 180 degree rule, which we later discovered we accidently didn’t obey in one of scenes. This is something that in the real thing we will play closer attention to, to make sure we don’t break this rule at all. I was very happy with our match on action sequence and the overall piece of work other than the 180 degree rule.

We had a few difficulties in maintaining the continuity, we often had issue with whether the mug which Katie (our actor) was drinking with being up or down. We had to make a note on a piece of paper of when the mug would be up and when it would be down to help the editing seem seamless.

If we were to film this task again I would definitely go back and re film the part which doesn’t apply to the 180 degree rule, I would also go back and improve some of the sounds I added in as some of them aren’t realistic and I think I could improve the quality of some of them.

I learnt about how to make an effective match on action as well as a shot reverse shot, I also learnt that applying the 180 degree rule can be difficult and next time we should draw a diagram of the setting and then place the line on this map to make sure we do not cross it and break the rule. I also learnt how to download royalty free music, and some good websites to do this from which may help me find music for my final video.