Planning the sequence- All of us

Our scenario of filming is going to be an interview held by a detective, and the interviewee is going to be a 'chavvy' female who declines having committed a crime. The detective will already be seating when the female walks into the room. The inspector will then say a few lies of speech, here the girl will have a bad attitude and talk back to the detective with no manners. We will use the 180 Degree Rule, Shot/Reverse Shot and Match On Action in the piece to aid continuity.

Location- Ettie Greenwood
We have chosen our location of filming to be at The Hub in our college. This is because we can get the room to low light levels to achieve a dark and serious atmosphere. The space is also open and quite bare so the location feels uncluttered.

Here are some images of the desired location:

 Props - Olivia Farren
As our scene is a police interview, we will need to use a table and two chairs for the two characters. To make this is realistic, we will have papers on the desk, as the detectives paperwork and also for them to write on, and a voice recorder also on the table, as well as a table lamp to complete the affect of the police interview room. We will also take a few pictures of objects to lay out on the table as evidence. We can circulate these props ourselves.

This is an example of what the desk in the interview will look like...

Lighting Design- Ettie Greenwood

When lighting our scene, we want to make the lighting fit the genre: thriller. Therefore the lighting technique we will use will be Key lighting . This lighting technique has a high/medium contrast between light and dark so it creates shadows on the characters faces and the surroundings. This therefore create a serious and intense atmosphere. We will use the table lamp as well to focus the light onto the desk to light up and highlight some of the main props. It is important that the audience can easily see these props and the characters so they can establish the context of the piece and what is happening. If the scene was too dark the audience would not be able to understand the context of the what was happening. The light from the table lamp will however still be dim so we do not loose the effects of the key lighting and use of dark space to create tension.

Here is an example of key lighting:

Costume - Natalie Sergeant 

                    

We will be having two characters in this shoot so two costumes will be needed. The first character that will be walking in will be the 'chav' as stated before. For the 'chav' we have the idea to stick with the typical stereotype, such as wearing trackie's, tank top and ugg boot's. Her make-up will be over the top and extrinsic. The actor will have over the top nails that are bright neon color's, with gold chain and hoop earrings as accessories. Her hair will be tied back in a slick ponytail with a scrunchy. 

The other character is the female inspector that will be sitting down. The inspector will have a different style than the 'chav' as she will be more smart looking. She will be wearing a black suit trousers and jacket with a white shirt, her make-up will be natural and not over powering. She will have high heels and with simple jewelry such as just having earring studs. Her hair will be straightened and down. 

Allocated Tasks - Natalie Sergeant

Each member of the group has been allocated to a particular tasks.

Ettie

Storyboard artists - The job of the storyboard artist is to be able to create a quick sketch on  paper of the shots and actions that will be used in the sequence.

                                - Ettie has be selected to do this as she not only has the most experience in this area due to having done Media in the past and had to create storyboard before but also because out of the three of us she has the most artist skills making her work the clearest at expressing what is our goal.

Casting Director - For the casting director their job is to recruit and organise actors to make sure that they are all in the places they are needed and understand their jobs.
                             - This task has also been set to Ettie as she has the most people skills within the group. She feels the most comfortable talking to people and has the best leadership skills out of the group.

Olivia
Location Scout - The location scout will select, research and find locations to be used with shoot that can be used. They will also look at risk assessments to see if the area is save for the filming.
                        - The task has been set to Olivia as she lives near the collage and has the most understand of the location. She also has the best knowledge of areas around that could be used in future filming.
Director of Filming - The task of director of filming's job is to call in and out the leads when filming is starting and also calls out the end of filming.
                              - Olivia was chosen as this task because she has the clearest voice out of all of use so that when we are editing the forage we will be able to clearly hear when the lead is called in and out.
Camera Operator - For the camera operator's job is to operate the came and make sure that the shots are correct and closest to the storyboard. Also to make sure that all characters are the correct area, and if the camera needs to be moved they will control this.
                           - The task of camera operator was given to Olivia due to her having comfortably with using the camera and has the most experience with filming as she has done more filming than the rest of us.

Natalie
Camera Operator - For the camera operator's job is to operate the came and make sure that the shots are correct and closest to the storyboard. Also to make sure that all characters are the correct area, and if the camera needs to be moved they will control this.
                       - I was also chosen for the task of camera operator due to my past experience with photography. With my past experience I will more naturally create shots due to doing it for 2 years and have had more had on experience with using cameras.
Prop Manager - The prop manager will collect and find all of the props that have been decided to be used in shoots.
                    - I have been decided to take on this task because due to my photography I have many props and also have the most experience with buying things online so if props are needed they can be bought online.

Match on Action - Natalie Sergeant

Match on Action is a editing technique, when a cut is made in the middle of a movement within a sequence, the movement must be kept continuous through out the next cut to match the rest of the sequence. This is so not to confuse the viewer and then disturb the flow of a sequence due to the change.

Match on Action doesn't always have to be two shots connected in the same place it can be from someone walking from one room to the next, a to keep this continuous is by keeping clothing and any accessories the same, this is the same with sounds that the can continuously moving from one shot to the next instead of just stopping.

His Girl Friday

 

Here is an example of match on action within the movie His Girl Friday filmed in 1940 by Howard Hawks. The cut changes the shot from a medium close up to a long shot. The female and male character is the main match on action within this sequence. The cut carries on form when both characters are starting to get ready to stand up, the continuous of the shot is that he is still holding the bar in both shots and that her hands are moving to her lap. Though the match on Action isn't precise with her hand the rest keeps a continuous flow of them leaning up.

Shot/Reverse Shot - Olivia Farren

Shot/reverse shot is a method that's used in the filming of dialogue, this goes with the 180 degree rule.
This is where the camera switches from a two shot of the characters, to the reverse of this shot.

This technique makes dialogue more interesting to the audience, as it gives vital reactions of either characters during their exchange of dialogue. Using shot/reverse shot also gives variety to the shots used in scene if used in conjunction with three camera positions, however this must be used following the 180 degree rule.

If a conversation if filmed with only a single two shot (look at the diagram to the left as an example), this is a problem for the spectator as this is boring throughout the scene as there is no variety. Also, this means we could only see the side of their faces, which then lacks the reaction shots that are important for the audience understanding and empathising.
Shot/reverse shot is used during conversation between characters to make it more interesting, otherwise the audience wouldn't be entertained.


Here's an example of how shot/reverse shot is constructed, look how it doesn't cross the 180 degree line...
Shot Reverse Shot - Filming Technique

The 180 Degree Rule - Ettie Greenwood

The 180 degree rule is very important when filming to ensure that the piece achieves continuity.

If you are filming two characters speaking to each other, you have to imagine that there is an imaginary line running horizontally through the both characters. When filming you should only position cameras on one side of the imaginary line (the line of action). If a camera crosses the line the piece will not achieve continuity.

Here is an example:

Here you can see that cameras A, B and C are all positioned on the same side of the line, but camera D is on the opposite side. To the right of the picture there are examples of what the camera would be filming; on camera A, B and C the character in blue is always positioned on the left side of the frame. This allows the viewer to understand where characters are in relation to other characters. However in camera D the character in blue is on the right of the frame, this is because the 180 degree rule is not followed. This may confuse the viewer, so the 180 degree rule should always be followed!

However there is only one way that a camera can cross onto the other side of the line of action. This if you film the camera crossing the line by the use of crabbing or tracking.

Here is a video to demonstrate how the 180 degree rule would look like in a movie, and what the consequences would look like if the rule was broken:

 

 

 

The Task- Ettie Greenwood

The Preliminary task is the first task set by the exam board, we MUST pass this to be able to progress on to the next task (the foundation portfolio).

The exam board states that the preliminary task is: "A continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue"

The task should include:

• Match on action
• Shot/Reverse shot
• The 180 degree rule

We will have to incorporate music, dialogue and foleys into our film.

All filming and editing must take place ON CAMPUS, using college equipment. We will record our learning and processes on this blog, which we will continue to post on through the preliminary and foundation portfolio task (an opening of a Thriller film).