Preliminary Task

Brief of task

Our first task that we were told to do in our Media AS was a continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room, sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. I decided to work in a group of three which included made by myself, Taylor Griffiths and Beth Evins. 

We first decided to spend some time planning on what shuts we could use and what the plot was going to be. We thought about the different rooms/locations, subject’s etc. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot, reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.

What went well?

Working as a team worked well in some aspects of filming the preliminary task. This was because we were able to get on and do it without having to rely on anyone else to be used as actors or actresses. We were able to get a good range of different shots, especially when I was walking to the door. We also tried very hard to keep within the filming rules, such as the 180° rule.

What could have gone better?

Working in a group was good in some aspects, however not in others. Whilst working in a group you d have to rely on each other to work sensibly and too keep up to deadlines, however sometimes that does not happen. Some people take things way to seriously, whilst others think that it’s time to mess around and have a laugh. Therefore sometimes there were heated moments, meaning that less work was done in the amount of time we had. This then impacted on the amount of shots we took and the time we had to edit sound and titles.

180 rule

In film making, the 180-degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene. An imaginary line called the axis connects the characters, and by keeping the camera on one side of this axis for every shot in the scene, the first character is always frame right of the second character, who is then always frame left of the first. The camera passing over the axis is called jumping the line or crossing the line.