Peliminary Task

At micro, technical level, how well did you observe the conventions of continuity and the language of editing?

For my preliminary task my group created a scene which involved two characters having a drug deal in a conference room. We demonstrated match on action when we recorded our main character opening a door which led to the deal, we did an extreme close-up of the characters hand on the door handle then cut other side of the door in which the character walked through. The cut happened just as the character pulled the door handle down and this formed just one way we used match on action in our video. After this we began filming the dialogue between the two drug dealers, in which we then began to demonstrate our knowledge of the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot. The two dealers sat at the table opposite each other and exchanged some lines, we utilized the shot reverse shot by recording over the shoulder of the character that wasn’t speaking which only showed the face of the character that was. We did this back and forth obeying the 180 degree rule till the characters had finished their conversation

What were you pleased with? What seemed to work well and why?

Throughout our production we also decided to add more shots such as a two shot, when the characters exchanged the ‘drugs’, (just sugar) we also included a POV shot at the very end when one of the dealers had the gun pointed to him. We combined all these shots to create what I feel was an effective short movie. These additions were my favourite parts of the production specifically the POV shot was in my opinion the best, as I think we executed it fairly effectively which made our production better on the whole, it was also used at the end which I think even furthermore improved the video.

What mistakes did you make, what would you have done differently?

During our production various mistakes were made which lowered the quality of our production slightly. We had made mistakes in positioning of the props and characters during recording, this could have easily been resolved if we used markers for the main props and character positions. We also made a mistake in the lighting as after the first half, the lighting completely changes, this was due to the fact we recorded on different days so it would be expected for the weather conditions to be different. Recording on the same day could fix this as the variables of weather are constant. I would have also used the tripod to increase stability for the camera, as the whole production was filmed with me just keeping it stable with my own control, this was a simple quick method as we didn’t have much time. Recorded footage at the end of our production was a bit ‘jumpy’, as the bag cut wasn’t great, if we had more time these mistakes could have been patched up.

How did you manage the group dynamics, equipment and resources?

We first took preferences on roles for the production then decided who would fill the positions. After the meeting we had it was deciding that would be the camera man, and my two other group members Owen and Kiren would be actors. We brainstormed a plan of what our video would be about and we decided it would be a ‘drug deal’, then we decided on what props we would need and who would bring them in. As I had the camera I would be directing the actors and controlling postures and positions so I was the leader of the group. We then negotiated with various teachers for a setting and we got the conference room in which we filmed our short film.

What problems did you encounter logistically?

On our first day of filming, one of our actors was absent so that acted as a burden to our group so I just practices shots and techniques as I was fairly new to the functions of the camera despite having some previous experience. On the next lesson, our camera had not been charged by the media resources department so our camera techniques were limited. I had to film connected to a plug socket against a wall so we couldn’t record all the shots we required. During the editing process, the software was extremely slow, as the playback of our video played at an extremely low FPS, therefore fine and precise editing was fairly difficult and this process was never resolved in the end despite finishing out production.