My first preliminary task was to film a scene where a man comes in, has a conversation with a woman then leaves. This was on a storyboard and my group and I had to include all the shots on the storyboard and then if we had time a few extra shots to gives a wider choice of shots to put together when we edit it.
My group and I decided that the women would be being threatened by the man coming in with a suitcase which we thought could have a bomb in it.
To start with I wrote out some scripts for the actors who learnt the lines while we set up the camera. We had to bubble the tripod to my sure it was level otherwise we would have a wonky shot and then i checked that the camera was set up proberly eg. the shutter speed, the dB, the white balance, the focus etc. I then ran 30 seconds of colour bars so that the camera could get up to speed and so that we didn't miss any of the footage in the first 30 seconds.
We filmed in the old editing classroom. The location added to our plot idea because the walks had scratches in them and if the was any paper around it was all ripped and crumpled. There was also wires showing it gave it a sort of sinister feel.
I was the camera'man' for the preliminary task. Like I said further up I set up the camera and did all the filming throughout. I made sure along with the director that the shots were right and that the camera was set up right. I bubbled the tripod everytime I moved the camera so that it wasn't not level. I did this by looing at the spirit level on the tripod and ajusted it so that the bubble was in the middle which means it's level. Josh did the directing, I did the filming, James was co-director and also ticked off what shots we had done and helped with the set up of the close up shots like the close up of the door handle and suitcase and Luke was looking at the continuity of the actors and shadows and placement of the actors.
The lighting we decided to use was a key and fill light creating soft light but we placed the lights at a 45 degree angle to the 180 line so it created some heavy shadows behind them we also put a fan in front of the key light and a light blue jel so that the light wasn't that heavy and the fan created bar like shadows on the ground so that it made it more threatening. This was important to the storyline because it made it scary and dangerous. I don't think we thought that much about the lighting we focused more on the shots but we did work the lights out roughtly.
The first shot we did was a wide shot. This was the establishing shot to set the scene. We did several takes to make sure we had lots of shots to choose from when editing and just in case there was a continuity errors. Before and after every shot we made sure we left at least 5 seconds of just rolling film so that we didn't miss any of the action. We shot the whole scene in wide then moved on to a mid shot. The reason we did a wide shot to start with is so that we knew where the actors would be placed so when we did a mid shot we could set the camera up in the right place. After we had done all the shots in the storyboard, this included Over-the-shoulder shots, wide shots, mid shots and point of view shots, we did a few extra shots of significant objects that are a main part of the plot eg. the suitcase which represented a bomb.
I remembered the 180 degree rule. My group and I made sure we didn't croos it because if we did the actors on scene would switch to opposite sides of the screen and confuse the audience.We got very close to the line but made very sure we didn't go over it. It was difficult for the point of view shots because they were so close to the line that we ended up placing ourselves on it.
To help us all understand each other for example when we were about to film we used the correct terminology. To get everyone ready the director shouts 'Stand by'. everyone else replies 'Standing by'. He or she continues to say 'Rolling' and the cameramen or women reply with 'rolling'. The director then waits for five seconds(Look above for why)and then shouts 'Action' which is when all the action starts. Once the scene is finished the director waits for five seconds again then shouts 'Cut'. The people operating the cameras then stop recording. In this case i was the camera'man'.
Everything I have learnt so far in my practical lessons helped me to complete the preliminary project successfully, for example learning about hot spots and head space, learning how to use the camera and how to record and of course the different camera techniques and shots.
Overall i think my group and i did pretty good for our first project.
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