As it happens we had to do a Preliminary Task – here is how it went!
As our preliminary task we had to film using three shooting techniques, Match on action, 180 degrees rule and the shot reverse shot, the plot was to have someone walking into a classroom and talking to someone then leave the room, however we decided to add in a bit of a twist!
The twist we decided to add in was to make a ‘teleporting door’ now I know that sounds stupid and childish but I really think me Jack and Jeremy actually managed to pull it off, what happened was storyline character 1 (Jack) was plodding along to his lesson listening to his music on his flashy IPod touch when he forces his way through the door and appears into the classroom, without even going through the corridor, in the room storyline character 2 (Jeremy) is relaxing and doing some homework until Jack barges in that is.
The way we planned all this almost perfect task was by storyboarding, and as usual not the best of drawings but hey, the clips went really well compared to our previous attempts, as usual in school lessons plan one day practical the next so we planned and drew out all the storyboards in one lesson, later on in the week we collected the camera before the lesson to try and bag a few extra minutes of filming time, and yes it worked we actually managed to complete every clip and get it uploaded to the computer.
My role, cameraman and I will admit I am not the best actor (though I love to try) and especially when attempting to film a very serious clip, I can never manage to keep a straight face, I always burst out laughing! However I am glad that while I was filming the more experienced actors, jack and Jeremy managed to do a perfect job!
One of the tough parts was using the three techniques, Match on action, the 180 degrees rule and Shot reverse shot, I shall briefly explain how we managed to use all these techniques.
Match on action – This is used when we see Character 1 walking up the stairs from the top at the beginning then we see him walking up looking in the same direction up to the top.
Shot reverse shot – this is used when we also see character 1 walking through the door from outside and then inside, so we see both angles of the entrance.
The 180 degrees rule – probably the most simplistic of the three techniques, all we had to do was make sure when filming we didn’t film from an angle that showed the characters swapped around, if this rule is not used, it makes views feel confused about the visual placing of Mise en scene as well as the characters.
Editing – for my group probably the most tedious part of the task, it could also be the best at times, too bad it hadn’t until we finished this task. In the end we managed to get everything flowing and even add in a Title screen and credits.
Well that seems like enough for me, with any luck I might be able to get a copy of the video and post it on my blog like I said I might so don’t think I will!
