AS Prelim

 
Our 40 second sequence is called Chloe and is about two teachers complaining about a student who is sitting in the detention with them, unknown to the teachers.

1. Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?

When planning and shooting our sequences, we worked in groups of 4 and my group choose to delegate planning roles amongst the members of the group, in order to finish all the required planning as quickly as possible. However, when editing we worked in pairs that were formed out of our original groups of 4.

My Group

Group Members:

• Ella - Either directed or filmed most of our shots and also invented the story
• Olamide - Acted the grumpy teacher and was involved in production
• Phoebe - My editing partner, acted Chloe and was involved in production

Me Filming Some Cutaway Footage

During the planning stage I was delegated the room planning and set-up planning shots. For this I had to draw a layout of how we wanted the room to be, as well as where our camera would fit within the geographical space of the room. I also contributed in some of planning activities that we did as a whole group, such as the creation of our characters and story. When shooting, it was the job of whoever wasn't acting, to do the filming and directing of that shot. We also made sure that everyone had a chance to be involved in the production elements of our sequence, for example I shot the first few shots of the sequence, in the corridor outside of the main location. Finally whilst editing, Phoebe and I made sure to equally designate both the physical editing, as well as decision making between the both of us.

2. How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try to take into account?

When planning the sequence, we had to take many different theories into account, such as the 180 and 30 degree rules, shot-reverse-shot and the use of mastershots, as well as other details prescribed in the brief. 
These include:

• Eye line matches must be included
• The use of a variety of shot types
• Match on action must be demonstrated
• A person must enter a room and share dialogue with another person
• The two people must be seated opposite each other

A couple of good examples of these theories being used in our sequence include shots 1-4, where we used match on action as Olamide walks along the corridor and through the door. These shots were cut carefully so as to maintain a strong narrative flow, such as matching the timing of Olamide's left foot hitting the ground between shot 1 and 2, or the timing of Olamide opening the door in shots 3 and 4. We also chose to include a reaction shot as shot 5, so as to signify that the other teacher had reacted to Olamide's entrance, as you would in real life, however it seemed unusual to not hear the sound of the door closing. To rectify this, we included the sound of the door closing from the mastershot, over this shot to uphold our narrative flow. I believe we achieved all of the targets set in our brief, atleast once. In order to meet all these targets, we had to plan our sequences very closely using a range of processes like:

Our Shoot Board

• Character/casting/prop list grids
• Scripts
• Walkthroughs
• Location floor plans
• Storyboard

We also had to work efficiently as a team, however we also had to communicate effectively with the other people working in the same building as us. For example, Group 1 were also shooting at the same time as us and also wanted to use the same corridor as us, so we had to be intelligent with our timetabling of shots so as to not interfere with each other's shooting.

3. What technology did you use to complete the task and how did you use it?

Whilst shooting we were equiped with a range of technology to allow us to complete the task, as our camera we used a Canon HFG30 set on auto settings due to time constraints and mounted on the hotshoe above it we used a shotgun microphone to capture clearer audio than the inbuilt mic of the camera would allow. This was all mounted on a tripod to allow us to make smooth pans, as well as keep the camera steady. In order to make sure the camera was level, we used a spirit level built into tripod ball head. Finally whilst shooting, we also used a clapper board in order to make it easier for us whilst editing, as we could identify the shot and take far quicker in our rushes.

Me at the Edit Suite

For editing we used dual monitor editing workstations, equiped with 16gb of memory and intel i7 processors, to edit within Premiere Pro CS5. We used the primary monitor for the timeline, source monitor, effect panel, footage input panel, etc. and the secondary monitor allowed us to preview our edited sequences in a full screen format. We used linear editing techniques to bring our sequences together and try to maintain match on action. Firstly we renamed all our shots in our rushes folder to their shot and take numbers, we then used the source monitor to mark in and out points on our clips. Finally, we dragged our chosen takes into the timeline to do more fine editing with the razor and grab tools. We also used the pen tool to mark key frames on the audio tracks, to allow us to adjust the audio levels through out the sequence.

4. What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?

As we were filming in a school, we had to take the workings of the school into account when planning what order to shoot the shots in. For example, at the end of each period (every 40 mins) a loud bell would ring in order to signify the end of a lesson. Therefore, we had to make sure we were not filming at this time as any audio we had would be ruined in these shots. We were also sharing the building with other members of the school and therefore when shooting outside of the main location, we had to make sure we would not be interupting anyone else and more importantly nobody would interupt us. This was often as easy to fix as checking that the space was free before we used it.

The Classroom we shot in

The room we filmed in also posed some small limitations which meant we couldn't go completely overboard with our ideas. For example:

• Moving furniture around would take up time, that we already didn't have lots and lots of
• If we wanted to remove furniture it had to go somewhere
• We would not have full control over the lighting of the shots
• The music department was located directly above us, so they could sometimes be heard



Location Floor Plan

• Other members of the school might need to come into the room for short periods of time

 However, I think that the room as a whole was not too difficult to work in, once you acknowleged the slight limitations it offered. Some of these limitations were also easy to overcome, such as the fact that we found a spare room which nobody was using in the media department, that allowed us to move our unneccesary furniture into.

Finally, when editing we had to be flexible to stray away from our original storyboard, as some shots would often appear better inside our heads or drawn in a storyboard, than they actually would. For example, originally shot 2 was meant to be a close-up of Olamide's hand opening the door and shot 3 was meant to be her walking into the room. However, we felt the original shot 2 did not very aesthetically pleasing, but it also left shot 1 dragging on for too long, so we added in a different shot not on the storyboard, which was the low angle shot of feet, to break up Olamide's approach to the door.

5. How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well and with hindsight, what would you improve or do differently?

I think that as a whole, our sequence was very succesful, however there are still gaps in our continuity that came up from lapses in acting, shooting and editing prowess, that can be learnt from. However, in terms of meeting the brief, I believe we were entirely succesful, for example:

• Match on action is demonstrated in shots 1 to 4
• Shot-reverse-shot is demonstarted in shots 9 to 11
• The 180 degree rule was observed in shots 7 to 11
• Eyeline matches were achieved in shots 7 to 11
• Our mastershot was used in shots 4 and 6

Our Mastershot

 We also used a range of shot types for effect and to maintain continuity. The low angle ECU of Olamide's feet in shot 2 was used to break up Olamide's action of going to the door, as well as "animating" the action and making it seem more real by getting the audience closer to the action, as well as offering a more aesthetically pleasing experience to the opening of the sequence. Where as the wide angle of the mastershot allows the audience to see more geographical space and get a better sense of setting and where the characters actually are. It also allowed us to have a point of reference to which the various cutaway shots could be timed to or to uphold narrative flow, such as the addition of the sound of the door closing to the reaction shot.

However, as mentioned previously, our sequence was not perfect. Some errors found our sequence include:

•  Poor framing of shot 6 cuts the top of Olamide's head off
• The cut between shot 6 and 7 means that Olamide is never seen fully sitting down, breaking continuity
• In shot 6 Olamide is seen holding books, by shot 7 they are on the desk
• In shot 7, Olamide seems to start talking very quickly out of nowhere
• The audio levels and tonality through out the conversation fluctuates alot, as the actors were not always able to talk directly towards the microphone
•  The OTS shots include far too much of the person's shoulder and not enough of the subject
• The reveal-of-chloe shot's pan does not come to a smooth stop and jerks back towards the left at the very end

End of Shot 6

Start of Shot 7

 In hindsight, many of these issues could have been resolved with better planning and shooting techniques. For example, the poor framing of shot 6 and the OTS shots could have been easily avoided by simply taking a second and asking where the shot was perfectly framed and reviewing footage mid-shoot. The awkward cut between shot 6 and shot 7 occured, as in the unedited shot 6 Olamide starts tlaking before she sits down and in shot 7 she starts after she is seated. This meant that Phoebe and I as editors had to decide whether we cared more about having seamless audio or seamless visuals. We decided the slight jump in visuals was less distracting than a odd combination of audio and thus cut the action short by about a second in shot 6. This could have been avoided by more careful planning of the shots and having someone watch out for simple continuity errors during shooting, such as these.
 
6. What have you learnt from completing this task? Look ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?

During the preliminary task I have learnt a range of shooting and editing techniques, as well as begun to understand the practical applications of continuity theories. My top 3 things I have learnt during the prelim are:

• The importance of someone on shoot looking out for continuity errors
• The importance of planning action in a sequence down to fine details
• The applications of continuity theories when editing ie. match-on-action

 The combination of both planning action to a finer degree of accuracy, as well as having a designated "continuity manager" will mean that in my future productions I am less likely to have a major continuity error, such as that found in shot 6 of my prelim. Without this error, there would have been no awkard cut between shot 6 and shot 7, which in my opinion completely ruined the flow of the sequence. This is something I would really like to avoid in my future productions. I also think that applying the editing techniques that we learnt about in class has meant that I have a better understanding of what is required from the shoot, in order to have a smoother editing experience in my future productions.

My Group as we Finished our Prelim

Our next major piece of coursework will be to produce a 2 minute opening sequence for a film. I believe that many of the lessons I learnt from the prelim are going to be very relevant to the opening sequence task, as again I will be striving to achieve perfect continuity and establish a narrative flow, through the use of a range of continuity techniques, such as match on action, eyeline matches, etc. As mentioned previously, I think it will be very beneficial for our sequence, to have a person who will be designated to watching for obvious continuity errors and who would make sure that action in one shot, would match the action in another shot. I also think our experience of editing a sequence to achieve continuity will guide us to make correct decisions around the shooting of our sequence, for example including audio cues that may not be part of what is on screen, but rather from what the audience would be expecting to be going on off screen, such as footsteps, door creaks, traffic noises, etc.

However, overall I am very happy with the result of our preliminary exercise and can't wait to get on to our opening sequence in the coming months.