Preliminary Task write up

Preliminary task write up:

Our task was to create a continuity film involving someone walking, opening a door, sitting down and having a short conversation.

Below is the final outcome

We first planned our video via a floor plan, this enabled us to start creating a starting point to our video, at first my floor plan involved someone walking through the corridor and opening the door leading outside and eventually walking into a area where a conversation would take place.


We rehearsed the walking scene first as we couldn't decide upon a script in which we all agreed would work. We made sure that the walking area and the area where the conversation would take place was suitable, it proved to be doable.
Each member of my group took part in planning,this was to guarantee that each member had some sort of input into the work and to have some discussions on what would fit and what wouldn't fit in the scenes.
We should have put additional planning into the lighting of the scene we relied upon the natural light to film, adding a light source in another place could have added a new effect such as mysterious'ness.
Each one of my group had a different plan, we also had differing lengths of our scripts so in the end we decided upon the most memorable one of them all, the one in which no one remembers.

We tried to incorporate lead room and head room into the final piece, we are still unsure if these actually worked or not, performing a extreme close up was incredibly awkward in the area we chose to film in, more about the issues we faced later.

I incorporated a quick fade to black at the end to give it the effect of anger, she wanted the job done now less time talking more time doing.
The 180' rule was very hard to perform in the area we chose, we either got a barrier in the way or we broke the 180' rule which proved to be a issue but in the end I think we mastered it.

In the part in which we were meant to film someone opening a door we instead used a automatic door that opens as she approaches to give her a sense of power, she is the most powerful out of the two. The door opens for her, she doesn't open doors herself.

Our conversation took place standing up due to the location either we got a pole in the way or we broke the 180' rule so we decided to film standing up. The conversation was short and only lasted a couple of seconds but after about four different takes we finally got together one that worked and flowed with the rest of the film.

Main learning points:
This area is arguably the most important section of the entire task

We got some parts wrong in the filming and had to cover it up in the final edit
Our first take failed, we broke the 180' rule before the actor even got the first word in which is a disaster on our part, but we fixed it using the same walking footage and adding a couple of new scenes to make the whole film work. The conversation also failed, our first try had about two lines of dialogue so we had to fix that by adding a new script.

We faced a huge problem in the form of camera angles, we couldn't actually film the conversation with them sitting down as the whole thing would look awkward and choppy. In the end we filmed them standing up so that we could still have something. In future I think I will use tripods more as every scene taken was via handheld movements, even when on a tripod I still held the camera.

We made a crucial mistake in the sound, we filmed outside on windy and wet days so we caught some background noise in the form of wind, rain and children outside doing sports, although in the final edit these shouldn't be much of a problem.
Our floor plan sucked, it was confined and had no backup in case of camera accidents, however we added a couple of new camera locations to make it seem wider in shots.
We chose a horrible location to film, this is what I would change in the future it sucked, we were confined in space and suitable camera locations during the conversation.

The whole film took two days to film , our mistakes meant we needed a complete retake of most shots, meaning we needed to miss some factors such as the speech we had to cut it short as otherwise we couldn't get a decent edit together.
I learnt that in future I would need to plan a lot better, getting all the flaws fixed before I film not as we are filming and then edit everything together cutting out the wrong scenes as I went. I would also use a wider range of camera shots, for example more long shots and some extreme close ups to add dramatic effect along with this a new location, a better one is needed to film anything.

We used previous footage from our original shoot because of time restrictions.

(Our continuity is actually not too great, the lanyard she was wearing disappeared during the conversation but we tried to hide that.)

Below is my original floor plan, featuring basic camera angles and the locations.

The top of it was the start and the conversation took place at the bottom on the plan in the semicircular area. 

As you can see our camera locations for our conversation are not displayed, this is because it was still unclear of how we were going to film it. 

In future I would most likely change the side in which the cameras take the footage of walking, it is always on one side of the path midway, changing this will give a variety of shots.