Preliminary Task Review

Filming my Preliminary task was a very good exercise to practise using the camera and doing different shots.  I learnt a lot from the task about different angles and ways to make the film seem realistic and believable, such as the door shot when I had to film someone walking up to the door and then film them entering from the other side. It also made us aware of the 180 degree rule, which is useful as it shows the characters having the same left/right relationship and so doesn’t confuse the audience. A new shot from the opposite side would be called a reverse angle.

Another shot that was necessary for the preliminary task was an over the shoulder shot. This is a shot that helps establish the position of each person and gives the audience a feel of looking at one person from the other person’s point of view. I used over the shoulder shots during the conversation between my two character’s and found that it was effective and was useful to change the shots, giving the piece more variety.

At the beginning of the task, I had to make sure that continuity was kept when my character walked through the door. It had to look smooth and so this took quite a few takes before I could get it right and make it flow. The editing of this movement was also difficult; as I had to make sure that the door was pushed open at the right time so that it didn’t look unrealistic to the audience.

During the filming of my preliminary task, I found that holding the camera still maybe a problem and so I used a tripod. This was very helpful particularly for the first two shots where the camera needed to pan and follow the character as she first walked to the door and then walked into the room and sat down. The tripod helped to keep the shot steady and still, avoiding the shaky feel of hand holding the camera.

When filming the over the shoulder shots however, I chose to hand hold the camera, because the shots were so short. At the time they seemed to be quiet still but it wasn’t until my final piece was shown a big screen that I could see that the handheld shots were a little shaky. I think in future projects I will defiantly use a tripod more because it keeps the shot steady and looks more professional.

Before I began filming my preliminary task, I realised that the camera wasn’t charged. This was not a major problem and didn’t seem to affect my filming as I simply continued to film with the camera still on charge. In the future I will make sure that the camera is fully charged before hand, because it would become a huge problem if the setting of the film was outside and there was no way of charging it. That would be a huge waste of time and so better preparation would prevent it.  I also learned how the camera worked during this task, including how to record, rewind and record over something that was wrong.

By the time I got to edit the piece, I found that there was a lot of editing to be done because of all the retakes I had done. This was quite time consuming and using the program final cut express was difficult at first. I watched a tutorial video for the program and once I got the hang of editing, it didn’t take that long.

During my filming, I was careful to make sure there was no background noise while the camera was recording. At some points people could be heard walking up the stairs or talking and so these clips were not used and I simply retook them when it was quiet again.

There were also some practical issues when filming my preliminary task. Firstly, I found that although the Tripod was very useful in keeping the camera steady, I had trouble making it the right height and keeping it straight. At times it looks to me like the camera is at a slight angle rather than being straight on. The camera also slipped while on the Tripod, but this was less of a problem as I could keep hold of it the hold time to make sure it didn’t fall.

Another issue with our filming was that we had to film over two days and so although I began filming in a room the first day, the next day it was being used and so I couldn’t continue there. Also there was the problem that the characters’ clothes had changed between the two days and so I felt it was best to simply start the filming again. Since we had only done the first two shots anyway.

Also, when filming we came across another glitch. While I filmed the person coming through the door from the inside, the reflection of me with the camera was clearly visible because of the light from the sun. I overcame this however by moving the tripod and camera to the right slightly, so that it was out of the reflection.  We found that in one of the rooms the lighting was too dark, and so turned on the lights directly above so that it would be brighter.

To help establish meaning to my task, we wrote a short script. This was followed but not word for word as I felt that if the actors improvised a bit, it would seem more realistic. I also used props during my filming, such as the computer in the background had the x factor live tour dates up on the screen. This was just to add effect and back up the script.

Doing this task helped my group to build up teamwork and work together to produce our separate pieces. This was good as it meant that we could all help each other by being the characters’ in the films. Another limitation was that at times the acting was unrealistic but for my piece, I wanted it to be more of a comic scene than a serious one and so over it was okay that it was over exaggerated.