Preliminary Exercise Evaluation

1/ Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?
My group had me, Kerry and Tom A in it. Tom wanted to direct the sequence, and Kerry and I both acted. This wasn't allocated due to it being any challenge, but it was just out of preference; I wanted to try and act and Kerry practised her acting skills too, and so Tom got to be director and it all worked out well. We also realised that we would need more than just 2 actors and a director; for this sequence to be effective and easier to edit, we needed to have a Production assisstant and we needed to check the sound, making sure that everything sounded right and to see if there were any distinct noises polluting the shot. We then allocated Tom to check that the sound was fine, and I was production assisstant for shots with just Kerry, and for the rest Tom was also Production assisstant, declaring what scene it is at the start. As Tom was director and with me and Kerry both acting, he was the only one that could see the whole scene from the camera's point of view and so was in charge of the scenes, meaning that he would say if anything didn't look right and the shots that were taken were based on his judgement; he was in control of all the external aspects to the scene. The rest of the work was distributed evenly accordingly, with the shooting schedule, storyboarding, location, script and even lighting aspects all evenly discussed and worked on. For the ideas to be taken down initially, we had to schedule a planning meeting.
2/ How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try to take into account?
To plan our sequence we held a meeting in which we decided who was doing what within the scene, the story of the sequence, the script, the storyboard with the location and lighting and any other adaptations written in, and the shooting schedule. We decided all of this based on what we thought was appropriate. The story was just a mixture of ideas that we all had and it was one we agreed on, and then the rest of the factors were made to fit that story. The location was a room with a screen in it so that someone could be watching a film as it is in the story, and it must have a door leading into it to film someone walking into the room. The lighting was to be dark, with the room being dark and the only light coming from the glare of the film on screen. This was not as effective on camera as in real life and so the lighting was an issue that could have been better, but I'll talk about that later. The processed used were the storyboard, script and schedule as mentioned earlier; we did the script first after coming up with the story, and then all worked on different aspects of the storyboard. We used the different skills we learnt about creating and reading storyboards and the different aspects to them in our own storyboard, with the drawings including the different angles the shots were to be taken at, aswell as the distance and the type of shot it was was written on the side. We walked through the whole storyboard once or twice, acting it out, and decided if any changes needed to be made, and also counted the number of different shots we would need, and from where. The shooting schedule was then decided. For this we realised we couldn't just shoot in the order of the shots, as that could require a lot of set-ups and that would be very time consuming for us. Therefore we split the shots into 2, and decided to do the shots inside the room all together in one go, and the shots outside in the corridor at one different time so that we wouldn't have to move from inside and outside the room. The script, storyboard and shooting schedule we made can all be seen with the link on the side.
We used all of the continuity techniques in our sequence to enhance it as far as we could and so used a variety of shots to do so. We had an establishing shot to open the sequence, followed by match on action of the door opening and 2 different angles of her walking, and 2 different angles combined with match on action of her sitting down. We planned a shot-reverseshot to incorporate the 180 degree rule into the conversation, and decided to cut to the master shot of the two sitting to set the scene inside the room every now and then. We also made sure that the shots were all at different angles if next to each other, to keep the 30 degree rule and to stop the glitchy effect happening.
3/ What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?
For the filming of the sequence we used a Canon Digital HDV, with miniDV format tape inside to record the footage onto it. We used a shotgun mic instead of a boom mic to record the sound, as most of it was in close range of the camera and so the boom mic was just unnecessary. We used headphones to check the sound of the video was clear, and these were attached to the camera to clearly hear the dialogue when recording the sequence. The whiteboard was used as a clapper by the production assisstant at the start of each shot so that we'd know which shot and which take it was. We also used the computer connected to the whiteboard to play the scene from the film that the actor in the room (me) was watching, by playing the clip on Youtube on the big screen through the projector. The last peice of hardware we used was the computer to edit the footage into the final sequence we made, using Adobe Premier Pro software. Tools were used to edit the sequence, such as Razor to cut the footage into smaller clips, and we unlinked the audio from the video at times to achieve the correct combination during the clip. It was non-linear editing so that the footage could be cut from any point and moved around, not in the order it was shot. We faded the sequence at the end to a blank screen, fading both the video and sound individually, and at the beginning to start it off. We created a title on Premier Pro and inserted it at the start, from which it faded into the sequence.
4/ What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?
In the planning we had to decide where we would locate the scene, and before we could finalise the location we had to check if it was available. Luckily the room we chose was free at the time of filming as no-one else was working or filming in there. As ours was all inside, the weather didn't matter to the location or any other aspects of the shot apart from the walk into the corridor, and that was fine at the time anyway. We had planned it in a non-linear way however, so that all of the shots out in the corridor were filmed at one time to different weather wouldn't have mattered, as it wouldn't be seen in the shots inside the room. As we were filming at times when everyone else had lessons, there was no noise outside to edit out, so that made it easier for us to act and film. The lighting was to be dim in the room, and so the lights were switched off and the only light was coming from the reflection of the projector on the whiteboard to give it more of a real effect. With the editing we had restrictions, as we had a certain period of time to finish it within and could only edit the scenes with cuts throughout, and so no fades could be incorporated inbetween shots in the sequence, so we only used then to start and finish the clip. Also, I was new to the editing process as I had never used Premier Pro before, and so learning the basics and then the more difficult procedures took time, but helped my understanding of the editing process very much.
5/ How successful was your sequence?
Our sequence was a girl walking into the corridor from outside by opening the door and walking through, and then walking down the corridor and walking into a dark room with a film playing on the screen. She's then noticed by the boy already watching the film in the room whilst she is sitting down. The film on the screen goes on, as the girl asks the boy questions about it, and to each questions he answers short replies getting more and more annoyed. She then attempts a fourth question when the boy gets annoyed and turns to her, telling her to 'shush!'
I think the sequence is good due to all of the rules of continuity shown in it. The beginning has Kerry walking to the room and opening the door, and has a brilliant match on action with her walking in from the other side. This is repeated when she sits down, as its shown from two different angles but with one fluid movement. One of the things missed however, was a close-up of her hand as she pushed open the door, which could have then led on to a match on action of Kerry walking into the room. The corridor also doesn't look good at the start as there's a tattered box sitting on the floor in the corner, which ruins the mise-en-scene on the shot.
The room is dark as she looks through the door, which matches the inside of the room helping the continuity of the scene. The conversation between the two is good, as it cuts from one to another at the right times of a change in speech and it creates a shot-reverse-shot to help the flow of the conversation, helping the understand the expressions of me and Kerry when we're talking. The establishing shot from when she moves into the room is good as it then turns to the master shot which we then refer to during the sequence a few times, to remind the audience of the positions of both of us in the room and where we were in relation to one another. One of the things that didn't work well was the reflection of the film on the window on the back wall. We didn't actually anticipate this from the start as we hadn't taken a test shot, and this was a little distracting during the sequence. If I did this task again i would make sure to remember to do a test shot in every angle, and make any necessary changes.
If i were to improve this, one really important thing to change would be the lighting. Due to the effect we wanted to create in the room, kept all of the lights off and focused the emphasis on the light coming from the film scene. This made the whole sequence too dark, and it was a bit of a strain on the eyes to see everything properly! Next time i would have some additional lighting coming from the direction of the film and out of the shots, so that things could be seen properly.
6/ What have you learnt from completing this task?
I've learnt much from this task just to do with the external factors to making a short sequence, such as all the planning put into it. The storyboarding and shooting schedule was good to do as it taught me a lot of the paperwork needed before even attempting shooting the foottage. The editing taught me a lot becuase it was my first time using it, and so i learnt a lot about how to cut and move the clips around, and how to unlink and extend video or audio if needed. I also realised a lot of the things that should be planned and set beforehand, like the setting, and what things could ruin the mise-en-scene of a shot. The lighting was one issue we hadn't anticipated and i know to do a test shot next time to check any aspects that wern't noticed when filming or planning.