prelim task part 2

Preliminary Task Shoot

Two weeks ago we went into groups of four as a class and shot the preliminary task. We were given a script to follow and were left to our own devices to create the video. Last week we spent the lesson editing the shots together to create a video.

We began with a wide shot in order for the audience to establish the scene and get an idea of the kind of space the characters were in. We then cut to a close-up of character “A” as she says “You’ve got to do it before they come” which displays an example of diegetic sound. We cut to this close-up shot to give the audience more detail of the characters and it also helps to intensify the scene.

After a second close-up of character “B” we cut to an extreme close-up of character A’s eyes, this was also used to intensify the scene and helps the audience notice small details about the characters, and brings across a sense of the emotion the characters are feeling.

After the audience establish the small details of the characters and get a sense of the intensity and emotions shown through these small details, we cut to a mid-shot of character A walking out and pausing with her hand on the door and as she just started to pull the handle we cut to an extreme close-up of the door handle opening and left the camera hovering over the scene in order to let the audience watch character A walk away and the door handle close. The sound of the door closing, which I feel would have worked well if we had exaggerated it to make it pleonastic, gave the scene a sense of closure.

To add to this sense of closure we cut to an extreme close-up of character B looking out at where character A had just left. We did this to encourage the audience even further towards the idea that character B was left alone in the room and were thinking through their decisions. When filming this extreme close up, character A was actually still walking out the door so we decided to get rid of the sound in this clip as you could hear the door shutting. Despite this being a good idea, it means that the end of the clip is entirely silent meaning it makes the audience feel slightly disorientated and gives a sense of the scene being other-worldly as in our world, there is always background noise. If we had more time I would have added in some background noise on the end shot of the close-up.

If I were to redo this task I would probably have chosen not to be character B as I’m not a actress and I feel as if I could have contributed a lot more if I were behind the camera or directing the camera. The director of our group did not really push us as a group in the right direction so the person on the camera was left to sort everything for themselves which was unfair I believe.

I also think I would have made it more interesting and put a twist on it like either made it humorous or gone all out serious because I feel as though the mood of the sequence is trying to be very intense but is actually relatively relaxed.

Furthermore, we could have perfected the shots more as some of the shots we began in one place, realised it was the wrong place for this type of shot, and decided to pan the camera across so that it was in the right place. However I feel it would have been much cleaner if we had set up the camera in the correct place to begin with, and it would mean editing the shots together a lot easier.

We should have had someone in particularly looking out for continuity as instead we were all looking out for it while trying to focus on our own personal tasks. This lack of a lookout meant that when going back through the videos we spotted a few continuity errors that should have been prevented.