Preliminary Task Evaluation

Last lesson me and three others were put in a group to film a short sequence in the old editing sweet. The location was a great place to film as here was lots of space and natural light. During our time filming we did not have allocated roles like camera crews do, we all had a go at everything. My favorite was being the director and deciding when to say action and cut. We tried to get a wide variety of shots, to do this we attempted to hold up the camera on the tripod, but it proved too difficult for us.
The lighting was very difficult to decide on; we discussed many reasons why we should use different kind of lighting. After much thought towards this, we settled on having a very light room but with hardness to it, as James was the main speaking character he needed to look a certain way. We had a key and a fill light so the shadows were attached to the wall. The lighting was very important because I gave the character a story behind him. The lighting showed that he wasn’t a soft and loveable person. He was a bully. At the time yes, the lighting looked effective but we are yet to go through the tape and start the editing. But at the time, on the screen of the camera it was very effective and did give great long shadows. Adding to the spooky and anxious vibe.
As there was a limited amount of time we were aloud, we had to quickly set up the camera and get it into position for the first shot. To set up the camera we firstly had to ensure the tripod was level, to do this we bubbled it. This means the bubble in the spirit level was within the smaller circle. We checked the frame, made sure there were no equipment in view for example the lights or our shadows. In our group we had written down all of the different shots we needed, we used a large range to ensure the audience understood the two characters relationship. For example, we shot Fiona downwards. This shows she is weak and had a lower status then James. We shot James so he looked like a powerful tall man; he also never sat down and got onto Fiona’s level. The sequence of shots we did were, wide shot, mid shot, close ups (of both), extreme close ups (of both) and over the shoulder shots.
During filming we were very conscious of the 180 degree line. This line is the one you are unable to cross when filming as it confuses the audience to think the characters have switched positions on screen.
On set we used the appropriate terminology to not only make the actors feel more confident in our filming but also to get experience of saying the words and properly understanding when to say them. It made us feel more formal and professional.
In terms of practical film making I think we have learnt very much in a short time. In our group we did not get any help from the supervisor, which made us feel more confident in ourselves.
The story behind our short sequence was that James was pressurizing Fiona into killing someone in an assassination type of way. We decided on this as we wanted to make the frames spooky and as if they could be in real life.
Over all i think our filming was very succesful and everyone lernt alot from this practical way of teaching.