Preliminary Task

What were we asked to do?

We was asked to design and film a preliminary task, the tasks asked us to design a 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 4 lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Planning the preliminary task


Before thinking about the preliminary task, I had to think about who I was going to work with. It is easy to work with your friends but I worked with 3 members of the class that I wouldn't normally work with. I choose to work with Ben Clarke, Jake Frost and Emmie Bloor. We decide to work in a small group as this helped us to create a well managed video, and together our ideas came together in the planning of the video. From working in a group with members that I wouldn't normally work with gave me skills in communication, and I learnt things about other students I wouldn't usually talk with. I really enjoyed working with the people I did.


Pictures of our storyboard

Storyboarding

Before starting the blog we had to plan efficently what we was going to do, and who we was going to allocate each role to. We all worked out the strengths and weaknesses which we had and decided which part of the task will be good for each member to do. Ben was a good drawer so he drawn out the storyboard with contributions from other members of the groups. We worked well together to bring all of our ideas together and formed a well organised and well presented storyboard. Jake was a good actor so he was alliacated the role of acting within the video and we asked Louise Pearson to do the acting with our group as well. Both Jake and Louise worked well together within the video and they both learnt their lines and positings quickly and got on with the job in hand! Me and Emmie both worked together in the planning process, we gave our contributions to Ben and he wrote/drawn them down on paper. Me and Emmie also looked for the setting of the video, costumes and the props that we was going to use in the video. In the planning process I think that all of our group worked well together, and we all made an equal contribution towards to planning process.


Me and Jake came up with a back story for the scene we were going to film, our video was based on a break up. Our back story was, that both of the teenagers had been together for 2 years, she female charchter was very clingy and staklted the male character, both of the characters was 17 years old, the female charcter was called Elenor Cooper and the male character was called Robert Brown. We believed if we came up with a back story it would help the actors get into character and seem more realistic as we believed it would help them get into character. The back story which we came up with seemed very realisic as this will help create more emotion.


Also in the planning process we came up with the most approriate props for our sequence, we used some of the props that we said we would use but didn't use all of them. From this I think we could have had decided on more appropate props and this will be something to work on for next time we do some filming. We said that we would use a box of tissues, a photo, and magazine, in our video we only used the magazine. Next time we do the planning I believe we could decide on better props to use.
In the planning process, myself and Emmie looked for a suitable location in which we could film our video. We selected different locations and asked the boys where would be most suitable. We deicded to shot the film mostly in room 52 and other locations inside and outside of the sixth form building.

Filming
During the filming process we used a vairtey of different shots, along with the shots we was asked to use. The first shot we used was a mid-shot, and the camera panned around the toilet, we used low lighting. The next shot we used was a mid-shot, and it was a reflection through the mirrow we could see Rob's facical expressions through this shot. The camera then zoomed in to a close up shot and it was emphasing that the boy had had enough. The boy then walks to the door and sighs, and has a short delay before the door opens. The next shot we see is of an unknown character walking down the hallway and the camera slowly pans as the character walks. The next shot we see is a jump cut to the door, and we see the character slowly open the door, and then the camera cuts to the other side of the door which is a mid-shot. The camera cuts to an over the shoulder shot whilst Elenor is sat down looking at the magazine. The next shot we had was an establishing shot of the two charactets, and we then see an over the shoulder shot as we see Rob talk. We had to include a shot reverse shot, as the dialogue continues. The girl begins the cry as the boy walks away. The boy walks towards the door, and door slowly closes for the final shot and then fades to see the credits.

Editing


I have experiences the software Adobe Premier for the first time, which I found challenging but after a bit of practise I learnt how to use the software effively. Each member of the group used Adobe Premier, we both had a bit of practise using the software but when we complete our final video we will all have more of an involment in using this software.


Overall I think that the group I worked with was good as we all worked well together to form what I believe is a good video. By doing this task I think that all of out group have learnt essential skills needed to make and produce a sucessful video.