Preliminary Task

Last week we planned and filmed our Preliminary Task in groups of 3 or 4. I was in a group with Becky Daniels, Sarah Burke and Gemma Thompson. I took on the role of filming whilst the others acted out the scene. The task set was to produce a short clip of a person walking through a door and having a conversation with someone. The task also needed to include the 'match on action', '180 degree rule' and 'shot reverse shot' techniques.

'Match on action' is a technique where different, multiple shots are used to show something that is happening. In our preliminary task, for example, we used this technique to show the door being opened. We filmed different types of shots for the oppening of the door: a mid shot of Gemma opening the door, a close up of her hand pulling the door open and a mid shot of her going through the door. These different shots will be put together using an editing program later on. To make sure that each shot merges together smoothly with the next, we allowed a few seconds of film before and after the clip we wanted so that editing the clips together to flow well would be easier.

The '180 degree rule' is a technique where the camera stays on one side of the characters, only moving within 180 degrees. We could imagine that the camera is filming from the front of a stage and can't film from behind therefore giving only 180 degrees to film from. We used this technique whilst filming the conversations taking place between Becky and Gemma then later on while Gemma had a conversation with Sarah. This means that the subjects are kept on one side of the camera and the audience feel like they are in front of them watching. We made this obvious by filming from Becky's left shoulder and Gemma's right shoulder for the first conversation, then stayed on Gemma's right and filming from Sarah's left shoulder. This means that the camera stayed on 180 degrees of all the characters.

Lastly, the technique 'shot reverse shot' is where you switch shots, often between two characters. The characters are shown to be facing in opposite directions which gives the idea that the characters are directly opposite and looking at each other, such as in a conversation, which is what we used this technique for. Whilst filming both conversations we shot the speaking character from behind the listening characters shoulder, then switched when the listening character started to speak and so on. By filming from their shoulders, it gives the audience a feel of their point of view and so that they see what the characters are directly seeing in front of them. This technique gives the speaker all of the focus and audience's attention.

The plot of our groups Preliminary task is that Gemma goes to meet Becky to tell her about her engagement with fiancée Tony, whom Becky does not like. Later on, Sarah then meets them and tells them about her new relationship with the same man. This causes an outrage with Gemma who, in the end, slaps her. Overall, I feel that filming our Preliminary task went well. We managed to incorporate all of the required techniques and tasks set. When looking back over the clips, we saw that some clips would flow very well when edited together, thanks to the extra time left before and after the clip.

One problem we faced was framing the characters correctly in each shot. We only filmed hand held, without any tripods etc, which meant keeping the character central and perfectly framed was quite difficult. This meant we had to go back and re do some of the clips. Another problem was trying not to laugh whilst acting and filming. We found our plot and some of the lines spoken amusing which meant we had to take several takes of some clips to get to a point which none of us laughed.

Other than that, we worked well as a group and I look forward to editing the clips together to create a final version.