AS Prelim

This is our continuity sequence 'Ex's' it is 30 seconds long, involving two school teachers discussing their new head of department. 

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

In my group was Ella Budgett and Alex Nicolaides. We mainly worked together as a group to brainstorm ideas and plan out our shoot for our continuity sequence. All decisions we made involving planning and shooting we discussed together. However we each had individual roles when shooting as both myself and Ella were acting which left most of the directing and filming to Alex. It was still a group effort though and we made sure everything was well planned out so it was easy when it came to the shooting. We made two separate edits of our continuity sequence. Myself and Ella editing one and Alex editing the other. This allowed everyone to contribute to the editing process.

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

We planned our sequence by brainstorming as a group. Once we had come up with the main idea for the sequence we started story boarding and created a script. We then created a top down plan of the room and walked through the sequence. The most important element for us to take into account was that we had to achieve continuity, so we kept this central to all of our planning. We had to consider continuity theories such as match-on-action, the 180 degree rule, the 30 degree rule and we ensured that we had eye line matches.

We used several pieces of paperwork to plan our shots:

• A storyboard- this allowed us to decide on all the main elements of the shots and what sort of framing and camera movement we would use. Storyboards are a very clear and effective way of putting your ideas on paper.

• A shoot schedule- this helped us to plan out the order in which we would take the shots and fill in any further details that we had not covered in the storyboard.

• A script- to plan the dialogue.
  

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

During filming we used:

• A Canon HFG30 Camera- We used it on manual settings.
  
• a Shotgun microphone- To pick up the dialogue and diagetic sounds.
  

• A tripod- We kept the camera on the tripod at all times. This helped us to keep our shots steady and made it easy to move the camera to pan.
• A clapperboard- We used to organise our shots and how many takes we had done.

The technology was used to edit:

• a PC with dual monitors
• Adobe Premier pro- in which we used a variety of tools to edit our clips. One of the most useful tools was the razor tool which we used to cut up clips, this was especially helpful when doing shot/reverse/shots.

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

When planning, editing and shooting we had to keep the brief and the purpose of the sequence at the forefront of everything we did. One of the other factors we had to take into account were our time constraints, so how long we were allowed to shoot for and how long we had for each part of our set as we were sharing the foyer with another group. This meant that we had to coordinate our shoot schedule with theirs to ensure that we didn't have to use the set at the same time.

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

For our first attempt at a continuity sequence I felt that our sequence was relatively successful. We stuck to the brief and demonstrated all of the skills that the brief outlined. I feel that our shots flow well together and our variation of shot types and distances keep the sequence interesting for the audience. However there were a couple of breaks in continuity, as in the pan shot the folders on the table and the jumper in the background of the shot are in a different position to where they are in the master shot. If we were to do this again I would ensure that the set stayed the same throughout the shoot so as to not confuse the audience. Also i feel like we could of involved more interesting camera movement in our sequence to demonstrate different skills and to make the sequence more entertaining for the audience. 

6. What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?

This task has really helped me get to grips with the main continuity concepts. This will be essential when filming my film opening for my main task. This task has also highlighted the importance of time management and shooting and planning with restricted time limits. Its also helped me develop my editing skills much further as i was not very confident with the editing software before this task, but now i feel confident with it i can take a larger role in editing than i have done previously.