Right at the beginning of the course we were set a preliminary task, this was to help us gain beneficial knowledge of the camera use and how certain shots are filmed and the functions of the camera. More importantly it also helped us gain knowledge of the need for continuity within any moving media production.
In our task there were a number of things which were specifically asked of us:
- The need for an establishing shot to set the scene/setting and when needed the characters.
- A shot which shows the surrounding and characters at depth, a long shot.
- A shot where a character is looking or talking to another (who can be on or off screen) and then a shot back to the second character looking back to the first. A shot reverse shot is the technical name for this.
- A close up, this is a shot which tightly captures a certain object or character.
- The cutting from one shot to another view which matches the action and pace of the first shot which creates an impression of continuity, even though the shots may not have been necessarily filmed at the same time – Match on action
Another thing we had to be constantly aware of during our first chance at filming, was the 180 degree rule, although quite simple sounding it does need a lot of attention as it’s easy to be unaware of, it basically refers to an imaginary line which cuts through the middle of the scene from side to side with respect to the camera. If the line if crossed it may cause disorientation and confusion for the viewer.
Here are a few screen grabs from our preliminary task:
Please click on the photo’s for descriptions of the shots.
The preliminary task helped us alot in the process of understanding how shots work and how continuity is a really important aspect of filming. We found that in our piece we have one major continuity error, unfortuantelty my house is laid out rather different from what we were hoping. We wanted a traditional set up of ‘Lily’ going up the stairs but my bathroom is infact downstairs. This meant the shot of her leaving the bedroom would be filmed inside my bedoroom, but yet for the match on action ‘Lily’ would be filmed coming out of a different room. Accidentally Holly when acting ‘Lily’s’ part came out of the room and didn’t shut the door. The flooring of both rooms is different, one laminate and one carpet and therfore the continuity error in our eyes is noticable. When looking at it on closer inspection we felt that it probably wasn’t worth the hassle of re-filming this is due to the fact we asked alot of peoples opinions and many people didn’t notice this error until it was pointed out to them. Thankfully due to us finally being able to understand the working of ‘Pinnacle Studio 9′ we were able to cut and edit clips appropriately to avoid any shots being jumpy and distracting from the smooth running of the film.
