As Media
Rahim Uddin
Our brief was to make a short media artefact that demonstrated we understood continuity techniques. The continuity techniques that we had to demonstrate were: a 180-degree rule, a character opening a door, crossing a room, maths on action, shot/reverse shot, sitting down in a chair opposite another character and then to exchange couple of lines of dialogue with another character. The scene was staged in the mac room and was about a teacher who walks into a classroom, and finds a student upset after they found out their GCSE results didn’t go as well as expected.
Moreover, for shots two and three we used hand held camera because we wanted the audience to imagine they were in the teachers shows, (walking to the class & opening the door. However, this didn’t go as well as planned because the camera was very unbalanced and the camera was very unsteady, when we watched the footage. Furthermore, for shots four and six we used a high angle shot, which shows the teacher looking down at the subject (student). We used this in order to show the superiority of the teacher over the student. We had trouble shooting this seen due to lack of space within the setting. Lastly, during post-production we had trouble importing footage, which was very time consuming. Furthermore, we had unfortunately lost some footages and this also consumed time. Nevertheless, whilst editing we had trouble listening to the conversation due to background noise in the setting.
On the other hand, I had developed a number of skills during this task. For example, during production, it was my first time to use the I movie HD software and during the production i managed to get hang of it and edit a few parts. In addition, I was not very good at using camera`s before the task but during the task after a few go with the camera I started using it properly and captured very good and high quality recordings. Furthermore, during the task I had learnt new media skills. For instance, I now know what the 180 degree rule is. The 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making that states that two characters in the same scene should always be facing each other while the audience is visually able to connect with unseen movement happening. In our task, we had used the 180 degree rule. For instance, in shot six we had a mid shot showing the teacher and the student talking, then in shot seven we had an over the shoulder shot facing the student and lastly we had an over the shoulder shot from the students shoulder. We had done all this without the performers moving.
In addition, I now understand Shot reverse shot. This is a filming technique where one character is shown looking at another, for example in our task the teacher and the student were sitting at a table opposite each other and they were having a conversation and each time one person speaks the camera flips round. In addition, I now understand Match on action. This is where a shot can be taken and stopped. The next sequence of events continues the film without the viewer being aware that the shots were taken at separate times. For example in our task the teacher opens the door in one scene and the next scene is of the teacher coming through the door, this was done to make the audience think that filming wasn’t stopped. Moreover, in the task I had decided to be the team leader as well as an actor, and from this I have grown confidence in acting as before I was camera shy and I have improved my communication skills with people. Lastly, during the task I have learnt the importance of time management as we had to use extra time after school to finfish our task as we had trouble with finding a setting.
From the preliminary task, I have learnt that it is vital to plan before production and by plan I mean setting, because unfortunately we had not planned a setting for our scene. Moreover, I have learnt that we should use costume next time for example, if we re-did our task maybe we may get a blazer for the teacher to wear in order to make the film look more real. Also, I have learnt how to edit a video on I movie HD. For instance, I now know how to add transitions or add effects to a video. However, still need more practise as I had trouble with sometime types of editing, for instance I did not know how to remove background sound. Therefore, in the future I will learn how to and this will save time during the post-production when I do another task. Furthermore, I have learnt that time management is extremely important whilst recording because for some shots they were 4 seconds whilst others were 8 seconds. Hence, next time we will plan how long each scene will be in order to be more effiencient.
There were a number of challenges faced during our pre-production, production and post-production. Firstly, during our pre-production we did not plan where our setting will be & so we had to pick a setting without considering how we were going to shoot in there. This effected mise-en-scene it meant for instance, one of the problems while shooting was that we did not have enough space in the Mac room, and we didn’t think about this before filming. In addition, the setting that we had used wasn’t bright enough, so when we were editing the footage the setting appeared dark. Also, we couldn’t find any costumes e.g. we needed a blazer for the teacher in order to make the performer look more like a teacher. Secondly, we had few minor issues with the production. For instance, the performers weren’t speaking load enough, whilst taking an over the shoulder shot for shots five, seven and nine. We wanted to take over the shoulder shots so we could meet one of the criteria’s from the task-180 rule. The issue was that the camera moved whilst recording and there was background noise during our filming.