Evaluation - Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Here is a re-cap of my peliminary tasks:

• Continuity Task

A short clip practising different shots, and looking into how effective they are in portraying the idea of the scene. The clip starts by tracking someones feet whilst walking. Match on action shots were used when going through the door, cutting from frame to frame showing that no time has passed. Finally, the 180 degree rule is used to film the brief conversation between the two characters, having there head and shoulders in the foreground and the person speaking as the focus. The clip also includes continuity editing, also known as invisible editing, to produce an almost seamless string of video. Here is the finished product.

• Resovoir Dogs Task

On Saturday 25th January 2014, at 11:00 am, filming began for our Reservoir Dogs reenactment. Our first scene was the tracking shot of the group, walking down the small gradient. This was shot on Grove Hill in Harrow. This road resembles the one seen in the original opening and provided us with an accurate background to shoot the video. To achieve the tracking shot, the camera was positioned out of a car window. Once the car began to move, the group started walking down. Shooting the scene from the car provided a smooth gliding motion without the possible judders common with handheld tracking.This made it possible to shoot a scene very similar to the original opening, as you can see from the final product. It took approximately 40 minutes to shoot.
  

The next scene, or rather scenes, we took was the individual close-ups of each persons face, walking toward the camera. The same location was used, but unlike the 18mm-55mm lens used for the tracking shot, we used a 75mm-300mm telephoto lens instead for the close-ups, as we found it more suitable for setting up the correct framing. The camera was set up on a tripod to maximize stability when filming and zoomed up to about 150mm. As bigger lenses take longer to auto-focus, we decided to use manual focus when filming to reduce the likelihood of out of focus and unusable footage. After each shoot we previewed the footage to ensure it was suitable. Props used included a gold chain, sunglasses and toothpicks, which can be seen in the final video. Shooting the individual shots took approximately 1 hour.

The penultimate scene we shot was the very ending of the original. In this scene, the entire group walked away from the camera towards the road ahead. We shot this further down the same road at a T-junction, despite initially having another location in mind. To shoot this scene, we switched back to the 18mm-55mm wider lens and set it up on the tripod. After clicking record, we all got in position and walked toward the road. Although editing was relatively time consuming. As this was the most simple shot, it only took approximately 15 minutes.

The final scene we shot was in fact the first in the original opening video. The cafe scene was shot in a bar lounge about 5 minutes away from Grove Hill. The friendly owner invited us in and allowed us to film around the round table in his bar. This gave us all the resources we needed to shoot a scene resembling the one in the film.The scene took about 30 minutes to shoot and was a success. It took two takes and when we got the right shot, filming came to a conclusion. After thanking all participating actors for attending, we finished filming at 1:00 pm, 3 hours after starting. We had shot all the footage we needed, to make an accurate reenactment which pays attention to detail to the original. Overall it was a very enjoyable day, and after editing, the video produced was to a high standard of which we can be proud of. Here is the finished product: 



What Ive Learned

From these two peliminary tasks, I had taken a lot of knowledge, tips and tricks that helped me in the making of the final product of my thriller, Breath. The continuity task taught me how to use the 180 degree rule. This is where shots of two objects, or in this case people, must not exceed a 180 degree angle. This clearly shows the audience that the two people are facing and talking to each other. Following the rule prevents conversation between characters from becoming confusing to the audience and makes the scene look professional. Although I have not used the 180 degree rule in my final product, I believe it has been beneficial in expanding my media knowledge of which I can take into my future projects.

In this preliminary task, I also learnt much about continuity or invisible editing. This is where action flows throughout each cut, with no elapsed time between frames. This technique is very useful in telling the story to your audience, as there are no jumps in time frame, and each cut begins as the previous one left. The result is one or more seamless cuts showing one action. A good example of this can be seen in 'The Job is Done', as the woman walks up to and opens  a door, then sits down. Despite this being a simple action, it is portrayed through 5 cuts, all showing the continuous flow of that action. I also used this technique in my final product when showing the mysterious kidnapper getting in and out of the car. I believe this made it easier for the audience to understand what was going on in the scene.

Match on action was another feature of my first preliminary task. This is where an action, in this case the opening of a door, is shot from opposite angles. This is shown in my video, where we see the woman begin to open the door from one angle, and see her walking through from the other side of the door. I found this method works well in both my preliminary task and my thriller opening, where I used match on action whilst following the teenage boys bike ride. It is a technique that I am also likely to take into future media projects.

Whilst my continuity preliminary task gave me much to learn, the Reservoir Dogs reenactment gave me additional skills and learning curves which I could use to take into my final product. One of the first things I had to do is choose a location for filming the reenactment. I used Google Street-view to find a location which resembled the original film. This technique seemed to be very successful, as the filming location on my Reservoir Dogs task beared much similarity to that in the original video. As a result of this success, I decided also to use Google Street-view for selecting locations for my thriller opening. Fortunately, I concluded the most suitable location was centenary park, just around the corner from where I live. Despite this, Google Street-view had played a key part in finding a suitable place to shoot my final product.

As a perfectionist, I wanted to make my reenactment as close to the original as possible. This required accurate framing of each shot. To achieve this, I switched to the 75-30mm lens, as it not only gave me a better depth of field, but framed the shot better than my wider, 18-55mm lens. This proved that different lenses are suitable for different situations. This task made me put a great amount of thought into my lens selection, which I found a vital skill when filming my thriller opening. Whilst the wider lens allowed me to fit more into frame, the telescopic lens gave me a greater depth of field and far more zooming capabilities. Despite this, the telescopic lens requires a very steady hand or tripod, as it is more sensitive to movement, which despite the cameras built-in stabilization features, can cause shaky footage if moved even slightly. This effect is worsened the further the lens is zoomed in. This knowledge helped me in deciding which lens to use in different shots when filming Breath.

Another skill I had learned whilst filming my Reservoir Dogs reenactment is keeping my subjects in focus. Blurry or fuzzy footage can really detract from the clarity of a shot, and there is a very small margin of error. The most challenging sequence to film was the individual shots. This is because the subject was continually moving toward the camera, and the telescopic lens I was using could not auto-focus very quick, nor was the focal length very long. This meant my subjects kept going out of focus when moving closer to the camera. To prevent this, I had to switch to manual focus, which involved adjusting the focus of the camera using the end of the lens. This allowed me to keep the subject in focus at all times until they became too close for the camera to focus. This gave me a good opportunity to practice using some of the features of my DSLR, and the skills I learnt helped me achieve techniques such as focus pulls in my final product.

Getting the correct white balance made colour accurate within the reenactment. White balance is used to make sure colour recorded are truly representative of what they are in real life. Many cameras have the ability to automatically set white balance, but I decided to perform this manually. To do this, I held a white piece of paper in-front of the camera to show it what the colour of white looks like in the current lighting. This will adjust the colours recorded in shot to what they would be in real life. I did this before shooting my thriller opening to prevent misrepresentations of certain colours, especially of whites. 

One of, if not the most challenging aspects of my Reservoir Dogs preliminary task was getting the actors together. I asked many people but their availability or willingness seemed to be a reoccurring problem. This resulted in us being 2 actors short for filming. From this, I learnt a valuable lesson, in confirming actors well in advance to the shooting of the film. This is what I did for my final product, ensuring they were available and willing to help me out weeks in advance. Thankfully they did not let me down, and some good came from the lack of actors during the filming of the Reservoir Dogs task, preventing disastrous consequences of an absence of actors.

Finally, one of the things that struck me about filming and editing the Reservoir Dogs reenactment was the time that was consumed in doing so. Initially, I rather naively thought that filming the shots that we required would be done within an hour. Filming in fact took 3 hours, and editing took far longer still. This rather surprised me as I before thought that filming and editing was not as time consuming as it really is. This discovery helped my accurately plan and schedule my thriller filming and editing. Sticking to this schedule would keep my work efficient, and keep me on track.

In conclusion, my preliminary tasks have helped me to a great extent in learning new techniques and skills of which I could implement into my final product Breath, and also carry this knowledge into future media projects.