visit from a camera man...

Last Tuesday, we were visited by Axel - a very successful and knowledgeable camera man. He watched each of our preliminary tasks and informed us what was right and what was wrong. In my filming it became clear that I had left to much head room above the actors, meaning there was a lot of empty space in the shot. Instead of doing this I should have brought the camera down to fill the shot with the actors. Axel also explained how to allow us to have varying heights in one particular shot that involves movements, e.g. someone walking in and then sitting down. To do this without having excess head room we should use a tripod and tilt the camera. Axel reiterated the 180 degree rule to us, making sure we understood it. As well as helping us with our tasks, Axel talked to us about films he had worked on which included Tomb Raider and Star Wars, which was obviously very interesting! Thank you Axel!

my Preliminary Task Essay

What have we learnt in our preliminary task in terms of cameras, editing, use of sound, practical issues and establishing meaning through film?

Doing my preliminary task enabled me to learn a lot about using the camera, editing what I recorded on the camera, the use of sound, practical issues, establishing meaning through film and also the limitations of these things.

When using the camera to complete our preliminary task we had many concepts to take into account. Firstly there was the one hundred and eighty degree rule, meaning that two characters in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two characters, it is called crossing the line. In our preliminary task we had to show an ‘over the shoulder shot’, an over the shoulder shot is a shot of someone taken over the shoulder of another person. The back of the shoulder and head of this person is used to frame the image of the character the camera is pointing towards. We used this because we had to show two people have a conversation and this type of shot is very common when two characters are having a discussion. When filming we had to consider the continuity of our shot, for example when showing the character knocking on the door from the outside, and then entering from the inside. We had to ensure that the continuity worked well because by creating an effect of smoothness between the shots. We also used ‘shot reverse shot’ and ‘match on action’ techniques. Shot reverse shot is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. The match on action shot means that when something happens in the scene then when there is a cut the same piece of action must be happening. Both these camera techniques help with the continuity of our preliminary task. We mainly used the tripod to film, rather than using a hand-held technique, because it meant our shot were more steady, as we found that our hand-held shot were too shaky and although this would be good for some types of filming, for example in a horror film, it was not right for our filming. The length of time it took to film our preliminary task was highly underestimated when starting out our recording. It took much longer than we anticipated due to having to use a trial and error method to find out what shots would work best, how to use the camera, deciding where to film from, and so on.

After filming our preliminary task we had to edit it, by selecting the clips we wanted to use and putting them together. As my group was very new to this, having never even used a Mac computer before, we had to watch tutorials that are found on the Apple website. We edited our preliminary tasks using Final Cut Express, and although initially being rather challenging, after watching the tutorials we got the hang of it. However this meant that the editing process was time consuming and we had to complete it at lunch and break times.

When filming our preliminary task we did not take sound into consideration too much, except for ensuring that our actresses’ voices could be heard. However a member of the other group found that in her film there was an aeroplane flying over which disrupted the sound of her film and meant her actresses’ voices were drowned out. To get over this problem she managed to edit out the sound of the aeroplane using the editing facilities on the Mac.

Practical issues which occurred when filming our preliminary task included; seeing the reflection of the person filming in the door. To overcome this problem next time, we should consider where to place the person filming to ensure that this does not happen again. Also another practical issue was the tripod, which did not have all the pieces present, meaning it was not as effective as it should be and therefore causing our shots to be less steady.

When establishing meaning through film we considered the one hundred and eighty degree rule to prevent audience confusion, and also the continuity of our filming, such as the character coming through the door. Also our acting had to be realistic which was difficult as the script was quite over-exaggerated due to the small length of our task. We had to make sure our group worked as a team to ensure our filming was as efficient, and done as quickly as possible.

In conclusion my preliminary task was very valuable in helping me to understanding camera angles, and establishing continuity to prevent the audience getting confused. Also it was very good for helping me understand how to edit my clips on the Mac.

My Preliminary Task :)