Preliminary Task Evaluation and Cinematography

Cinematography

Our preliminary task video was generally quite good if you consider the different aspects of our video.
Firstly, Toby’s use of camerawork was very steady while holding a shot/s with all the types of shots that were constructed in the video. So in terms of holding a shot steady, we did well.
In terms of camera angles, we aimed to use a few shots such as:

• Panning - the camera horizontally so that it sweeps around the scene.
• Over the shoulder - a shot of someone or something taken from the perspective or camera angle from the shoulder of another person. The back of the shoulder and head of this person is used to frame the image of whomever the camera is pointing toward. This type of shot is very common when two characters are having a discussion and will usually follow an establishing shot which helps the audience place the characters in their setting. It is an example of a camera angle.
• Two shot - the frame encompasses a view of two people.
• Match on action - simple but essential technique, where the perspective of the camera changes during a scene and the scene continues to flow.
• 180 degree rule - 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 will always be frame right of the second character, who is then always frame left of the first. If the camera passes over the axis, it is called jumping the line or crossing the line.
• Zooming shot - A shot in which the magnification of the objects by the camera's lenses is increased (zoom in) or decreased (zoom out/back).
• Medium Shot - a camera angle shot from a medium distance. The dividing line between "long shot" and "medium shot" is fuzzy, as is the line between "medium shot" and "close-up". In some standard texts and professional references, a full-length view of a human subject is called a medium shot; in this terminology, a shot of the person from the knees up or the waist up is a close-up shot.
• Close Up - tightly frames a person or an object. Close-ups are one of the standard shots used regularly with medium shots and long shots (cinematic techniques). Close-ups display the most detail, but they do not include the broader scene. Moving in to a close-up or away from a close-up is a common type of zooming.
• Shot reverse shot - a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.In terms of shot-reverse shot, we received good feedback from other students as some mentioned the fact that the use of shot-reverse-shot was effective for when Liam and Richard where sitting around the table face-to-face. They also thought that we had good use of shot-reverse shot in the video as a whole, so this was a strong positive factor of our video which was good.

With this very varied range of shots we were able to really experiment with different methods of storytelling, and I think they are one of the main reasons for our films success! Film is a visual medium, and so these visuals should be used to their highest potential through different camera angles.

The use of camera angles in our preliminary task video was overall seen as good.

Also, based on then editing used in the video, we recieved fairly decent comments. Some of the comments involved the good length of shots, good range of shots like close-ups, the right pace of editing etc One slight problem of the editing was the dialogue.The reason why this was a slight problem is because the sound of the dialogue was quite quiet which was the only real downside to the editing of the video.

The objectives of our task were to catch the audience's attention. To entertain them and to make them feel interested in the video.

There were only a few 'named' shots that we did not include, because of practicality or just not finding a use for them:

• Dutch Tilt

• Aerial Shot

The Dutch tilt is more commonly associated with horror films, so was a completely inappropriate shot to use for our film. The aerial shot is hugely impractical seeming as we do not have access to much height, however the opening establishing shots could be argued to be 'aerial'.

Evaluation
This task has taught me a great deal; not only about working in a group (and those constraints) but also about technical problems that can unexpectedly arise during filming. The filming process took longer than I expected due to a few issues with the camera. I think our preliminary task clearly demonstrated match on action (when the main character walked through the door), shot reverse shot (during the conversation), and the 180 degree rule.

The first problem that occurred was the choice of our actors: it took enough time to film a standard amount of footage as they didn’t take it very seriously; this resulted in a lot of wasted time combined with poor quality footage. The next problem that surfaced was that the footage hadn’t recorded properly as the camera wasn’t set up to record on to the memory card.

Our group did not have any organisation or planning, as we weren't able to decide on the storyline, as well as the different types of shots and angles before we started filming; this could of saved a lot of time. I am glad that the technical problems with the camera happened during the preliminary task and not the final task, as this taught me to always check that the camera is set up correctly and is recording on to the memory card – so we will not make the same mistake again. I also learnt that test filming is very useful as the lighting of a shot can appear very different on a full screen as opposed to a camera screen; its normally much darker than you actually think it is.

I am glad that I worked with the group that I worked with, as it taught me to choose who I work with carefully as I don’t want to end up doing all of the work. Luckily there was one member of my group that I worked really well with; we contributed our ideas, worked hard, explored creative editing and filming techniques and committed our free time to finishing the film. So I now know that I work best in a pair as we can share out equal amounts of work, I also know who I am going to work with to create the final film – we already have many ideas and have past experience with working with each other so we will definitely make a good team.

Overall I believe we done fairly good in our preliminary task as we all worked hard on different aspects and put them together rather well. We came across quite a few problems whilst filming but we overcame them and managed to finish filming. We could have improved our time management by finishing filming earlier but as we didn't have a room, we were still being productive by editing the bits we had filmed and comparing angles as we filmed some scenes a number of times at different angles to find the most suitable. To conclude, I believe our preliminary task was a success. The biggest problem for us was when we went against the 180 degree rule and this tells me how such a small factor can make people confused.