Shot List For Preliminary Task

This is the shot list we created in planning to help us with the filming of the task:

1) Medium shot of teacher drinking on his break, then getting his phone out. length: 3 seconds
2) Close up of phone showing the time. Length: 2 seconds
3) Birds eye view of the can dropping from the teachers hand. Length: 2 seconds
4) Tilt shot of teacher pacing round the corner . Length: 5 seconds
5) Panning shot of teacher pacing still. Length: 5 seconds
6) Close up of foot splashing puddle. Length: 2 seconds
7) Panning shot of the teacher walking up to the door. Length: 2 seconds
8) Extreme close up of 'push to open button'. length: 2 seconds
9) long shot of the teacher walking down corridor which turns into a low shot. Length: 14 seconds
10) Over the shoulder walking away shot. Length: 3 seconds
11) Birds eye shot of teacher entering door. Length: 4 seconds
12) Extreme close up of door handle opening. length: 2 seconds
13) Panning shot of teacher walking into the room. 2 seconds
14) over the shoulder shot from students view, with dialogue "why are you here" Length: 3 seconds
15) Over the shoulder shot from teachers view showing student worried. Length: 3 seconds
16) Extreme close up and panning shot of teachers eyes. Length: 2 seconds
17) Extreme close up of students lips in black and white, with dialogue "I've done something bad" Length: 2 seconds
18) Slow motion shot of student revealing wallet. Length: 4 seconds
19) Continued slow motion of extreme close up of wallet landing on table. Length: 5 seconds

Evaluation of Preliminary Task

-       Question 1 What planning did you do for your filming task, and how did this planning aid the filming? Think about:  camera shots, subject of the conversation and the dramatic moment.  You may also include how you used match on action, shot reverse shot, and the importance of continuity (i.e. costume if you filmed over a number of days.  If this was a problem on a shoot then include this). Point evidence discuss think about appeal of a variety of shots and also purpose, eg to make a character look insignificant or powerful…..

..... The planning we did for the preliminary task are, we created a list of ideas what we had, our original idea was to have a police investigation interview, where we swapped the stereotypes and made the woman in the wrong. Although this slowly evolved into an idea of a stolen wallet and a conversation of a person confessing then revealing the wallet right at the end for the dramatic moment, this is dramatic as there are no clues on what she has done, all we know is "I've done something bad" until the last moment where she revels the wallet, leaving the audience questioning when the film finishes. We put that section in slow motion to add to the affect and let the audience take in what she has done, another affect we used was fade to black, this was to add sharpness to the specific moment we wanted to be memorable. We chose this idea after group feedback and overall we believe it was a more of an everyday realistic situation, an item being misplaced/stolen. My role in this task was the main character the teacher but also played a vital part in the planning process with the theme of the conversation and the affects we should use. Next up was the location, the location was set already and was on the school premises, the conversation was set in a tight corner to make it seem enclosed and no escape. Once we had our idea we made a list of camera shots we would like to include, these included: birds eye view, close up, extreme close up, over the shoulder shot, a panning shot, a shot reverse shot and a low shot. In our film we used shot reverse shot in the situation of the conversation, this is because a shot reverse shot is any easy way to show two people facing each other. Here is and example of a shot reverse shot.

We used a variety of shots to make it exciting for the audiences. The final stage of planning was creating a shot list, we done this so we had a clear idea or what shot types we were going to use and where, giving a structure to our filming. During our filming we had a slight problem with continuity as I lost the shirt I had from the first day of filming and I couldn't wear one shirt for half of the film and another for for other half as this is not very professional, therefore we had to shoot it all again, fortunately we all had the motivation, to make matters worse while editing our film it got deleted twice but we struggled through it.


-       Question 2:   What is the 180 degree rule, and how is this rule important to the filming task?  Clips from your film or other examples of rule and breaking of it.
.....  The 180 degree rule is the rule where the camera can not go past the 180 degree point otherwise it will confuse and disorientate the audience. An example could be in a conversation or a football match, if the camera changed sides you would get confused which way you team is shooting. My group achieved this but not going around the 180 degree point in the conversation when using shot reverse shot. If the camera angle went past the 180 degree point myself and Jess would have swapped sides creating confusion.

-       Question 3 What shot types and camera angles did you use in your filming task, and to what effect?

low shot to show dominance of characters 

....... The shot types and camera angles we used were: birds eye view, close up, extreme close up, over the shoulder shot, a panning shot, a shot reverse shot, a low shot and a tilt shot. The reason we used a close up is to express the emotion on someone's face giving the emotion the main stage, an extreme close up is the same but pinpoints a certain area like the eyes or the mouth, in our film we used it as an extreme close up of the eyes when both the characters meet, it is such a simple shot but adds great affect showing the characters true emotion, but also gives it a western dual effect. We used a over the shoulder shot to give the audience a sense of the characters setting, the shot reverse shot was used to the same affect although it was to show the audience that there is two people facing each other as well. Furthermore the birds eye shot was used as an establishing shot to show of where the character is, linking back to our preliminary task it was used to show that the main character was about to walk through a door although with this shot you are never certain of what is through that door which builds tension. Moving on we used a low angle tilt shot to give the main character an era of power and show the he is dominate. Our group used a variety of shots to make it exciting and keep the audience engaged.

extreme close up of eyes seen in 'The good
The Bad And The Ugly'

Birds eye view shot 

From the video above, even though our conversation was not a dual it has the makings of one, serious faces, nervousness and most of all uncertainty, I was inspired by the camera angles used in this scene and the expressions of the characters, they were constantly serious which I targeted in our preliminary task. My favourite camera shot in this was the extreme close up of the eyes followed by the camera pin pointing their guns, in our film we pin pointed the wallet.


-       What editing skills have you developed?  How confident are you with using the editing programme?  Give details of specific editing skills/techniques you have developed/improved, and include areas where you lack confidence/need to improve? 


..... The skills I have developed are everything to do with the editing programme, before starting media I had no knowledge of how to use the editing programme but now I can happily make my own video with all the basic affects. In my personality I like everything being right with large attention to detail and this reflects in the preliminary task. The specific areas I have improved on is using slow motion and fading the music in and then fading the music out the end, which I thought was done to perfection as it faded at the right time to hear the conversation then had constant gain to the dramatic ending. One area I lack confidence in is getting the right affects into the right place in the film as I'm never to sure where to put affects.




-     Feedback


I asked some of my friends out of the media class on what they thought of the video, the positives I got were: the soundtrack made the whole video more dramatic, the short conversation worked perfectly, as we aren't great actors and the variety of camera angles made it an enjoyable watch. Although some negatives I got were: the music tempo didn't match the film at times and the camera was also shaky at times 

Preliminary Task Video