Posted by Fraser Ward - This shot was our first POV shot. We liked the idea of using these shots as they showed the character's perspective. The shots were very easy to achieve and very fast to set up. The desired effect was achieved and time was not wasted setting up lighting.
Posted by Sayful Islam - This shot was done like a wipe to change the camera shot, as he lifted the top of the bag we made it cover the frame this made it look naturalistic instead of taking the audience out with an obvious wipe.
Posted by Louise Holman - This is an example of three-point lighting; key light, back light and fill light. This is used in order to create a three dimensional look, which portrays realism. We could've moved the back lighting so it was more diagonal as the lighting at the back in this still is too focused on the subject.
Posted by Sayful Islam - This shot, we put the subject on the side of the frame which normally wouldn't look right however we did this because we wanted to get the door in as this scene someone comes through the door. this casting whise was difficult as originally we had Fraser but he was unable to make it so we had to fill in with someone else this did make our continuity off as different body shapes and looks. So to make it look slightly better we edited enough out to show just a body but just very close cutting.
these shots of the eyes opening were there to give suspense and pace accordingly with the narrative, this was aided by the non digetic sound i put in of a drum beat which was bridged with the subject opening his eye.
Posted by Jaz Hewitt:- This shot was fairly difficult. Panning to the speed of his walk and to tilt up at the same time. we did it a few times to make sure we could use the best clip.
Posted by Sayful Islam this shot was fund to play with as we had to cut time because the pace of the walking was slow, i tried to fastfoward the walk in post production but that looked wrong so i played around with corrs cutting and corss dissolving as well as overlap. but what i stuck with was the cross dissolve as it sped up the film itself however kept the slow paced walk with a stylish effect.
Posted by Fraser Ward- These OTS shots really conveyed the sense of conversation between the characters, yet the camera size allowed lots of body language to be shown so the hostility between the characters was also carried through.
Posted by Sayful Islam - In this scene we have used shot reverse shots, to show converstation between the two characters, we made sure we kept to the 180 degrees rule so we would confuse the audience with character orientation.
Posted by Louise Holman - I chose the setting/ location for our preliminary, this room was chosen because of the availability of the black curtains that could be pulled across the entire room. This makes it easy to manipulate the lighting to how we want it to look, which is a creepy atmosphere.
Posted by Jaz Hewitt:- This shot and the previous shot are a good example of match on action, as the bag opens, in each clip we filmed the entire shot of the bag being opened and when we came to edit we cut both clips at the point where the other would start to keep the flow of the bag opening with no jumps or replays of the shot.
Posted by Sayful Islam - the problem with this shot was that we did not cover the door with the curtain this meant the ambient light from the back ground was seen in the shot this was a minor mistake we didnt realise untill post production, we should have returned to the scene and re shot it, with either the ambient light off or the curtain pulled over to create a black out.
Posted by Fraser Ward- We used different shot angles to try to communicate different feelings. We wanted to vary our shot angles to make the film more interesting. Using all three lights almost highlighted the character against the dark background. This, accompanied by the low angle, forms a sense of power which we were aiming for.
Posted by Sayful Islam - This shot had a slight problem with the digetic vocal sound as the camera wasnt close enough to capture and high level it came out rather quiet in comparison to the rest of the digetic sounds we have, what we should have done was either put an extra mic on the camera to pick up the sound at a higher level, or raised the sounds level through post production in final cut pro.
Posted by Louise Holman - In this clip above, we used a cross dissolve from a close up to an extreme close up to suggest an eerie atmosphere. We wanted to experiment with the lighting, so we tried it in all different places and used fill and key lights and then we decided to take out the fill light in order to create shadows to explore dark themes. We used side lighting to help contribute to those dark themes.
Posted by Fraser Ward- The 360 degrees spin was one of the hardest shots to pull off in filming, therefore we had to slowly move the dolly to avoid any obvious mistakes such as a light being seen by the camera. In editing we managed to inject more atmosphere and excitement into the scene by changing the speed of the camera movement at random points and adding in ominous noises.
Posted by Jaz Hewitt :- To achieve this shot we had to find a way of getting the camera at a very high angle and keeping it safe, as well as us. in the end we decided on a table to boost the height. We made sure that the camera was being watched by at least one person at all times to reduce the risk of damaging anything or anyone.
Posted by Sayful Islam - This shot took awhile to do as everytime we did it we would have to put the chess pieces back exactly how we had ti in the previous scene, we took a photo of the position of everthying so we could keep re doing it. We have photos of these on another blog entry.
Posted by Louise Holman - We kept the 180 degree rule by keeping the camera in motion. We achieved this by using a dolly. We moved the camera around in a whole. By doing this we evoke the audience to think as it creates confusion and curiosity. We had to do this in two shots because of the issue with lighting. I had to follow the camera with the lights so they weren't seen in the frame but the wires weren't long enough so I had to plug the lights in on the other side of the room. Through this, the lighting changed quite a bit so in order to hide it, we used editing to make it seem smoother. To overcome this in the future, we could use lighting on the ceiling, or battery powered lights.
Posted by Jaz Hewitt:- This shot was very challenging to film as we were in a small room with little space to maneuver both lights and the camera, hence why it was achieved in 2 shots. The dolly was used for an experimental idea that worked well, with a bit more practice it will be easier to control. In the second half of the shot it was more difficult to keep in a symmetrical motion, as there was less space and i had to be aware of where the lights and props were at the same time as watching the camera. as Louise mentions above, different lighting and more practice would have helped us get a smoother shot. we could also find a way of marking out where to go beforehand.
Posted By Sayful Islam -
The way we did the two shots without making it look obvious that it was to different shots were through post production editing, I had the two shots and in final cut I overlapped the two shots to make it continuous, also at this moment we put in a non digetic sound of screeching and off key violins, this made it look more fluid with the overlap, as it made the narrative make sense of a ‘Schizophrenic’ who was originally talking to someone who wasn’t actually there, this moment portrays that very well in an almost supernatural way.
Posted by Jaz Hewitt:- As we were tracking round, the camera lost focus near the end, causing a blurred effect. however we used this to our advantage by adding a non digetic sound of a heart beat where it blurs creating a more intense feeling and making the audience experience what the character is feeling.
Posted by Louise Holman - I used a key light here to create hard lighting which in turn, creates shadows. This communicates the tension and shock to the audience. The light coming in from the door is an issue as has broken continuity by being on. We could of over come this by getting a tighter framing on sayful.
Posted by Sayful Islam-
This scene was a difficult scene as the original was to long so we had to cut it down to just the hand coming over, but continuity wise from the last shot I was breathing heavily and in this shot I was static, so we did try and put a Foley effect of breathing heavily but it didn’t look right, so in the future we will make sure every shot links well with continuity editing.
Posted by Jaz Hewitt: - The lighting in this shot worked really well as it lights lots of the pale floor and the character and props. As there is a lot of space lit it creates the impression that the character isolated and alone, but is still the main focus of the shot.
Posted by Sayful Islam
This scene was a very quick paced scene to represent the actions of the subject, with the non digetic sound in the background it which was very slow and melodic it was a big contrast we felt worked in the narrative we were trying to tell of the schizophrenic character.
Posted by Fraser Ward- The scene where the chess piece rolls in front of the camera was an extremly important shot as it signified the game of chess being 'over' and the enemy was defeated. The camera was tricky to position as the camera had to be low down and facing the floor. The second tricky task was getting the chess piece to stop in the frame. After many attempts we managed it, yet in the future maybe thinking ahead on how to pull off shots like this easier would be a good idea to save valuable time.
Posted by Jaz Hewitt:- In this shot we forgot to set the white balance, which showed to be really obvious compared to the rest, in the future we will always double check the white balance has been set.
Posted by Jaz Hewitt :- Overall I think it came out well but with room for improvement. It was a good idea to use costume, as it meant continuity was easier and we could film at any point as the costumes were in college and we had permission to use them. Also it was useful that we only used set lighting as it meant we got used to setting it up and positioning them to where they were needed. I learnt a lot from mistakes and how we can avoid them in the future. We need to keep an eye on sound levels both in editing and in the filming., and where the lights are in each shot to avoid sudden changes in light.
To make it better I think we could have cut it at the rolling chess piece or reordered the final few shots differently, as cutting back to the POV shot meant a sudden change in pace.
Posted By Fraser Ward- I personally feel the final product was successful, yet there were mistakes to learn from. Silly mistakes such as forgetting to use white balance should be avoided to keep contiuity, but aside from that a lot of the continuity was kept. The origional audio should be analysed during filmed to check if shots need to be re-done in case a line was delivered too quietly, which happened during one of our scenes. Hair and make-up was not an issue for this task as both characters were wearing hats and were both male, so not a lot of attention was needed on each of them. In future filming we need to be careful not to overlook this though as it is definatly a very important factor.
To improve on our work i think that more speech dialogue could have been involved to help keep a flow of continuity, yet it wasnt a major issue for our preliminary project.
Posted by Louise Holman - I think our peice was successful as we put a lot of effort into it. The main effort was the filming as we spent a lot of time trying to get the full effect of the shots; making sure there wasn't too much room above the heads on the actors. However, we could have focused more on getting the positioning right; for example in one shot the door was in most of the shot when it should've been more focused on the actor. We had issues with editing as our file got corrupted and so we had less time to edit as a team. The lighting was an issue as the wires weren't long enough so we had change plug sockets. This created continuity problems and in the future we hope to overcome this by using battery powered lighting. Overall i think we done well, but we need to focus on our mistakes so in the future we won't make them again.
Posted by Sayful Islam -
I was very pleased with the final product as I believe that we all as a group contributed a vast amount of effort into creating this, we had a very good narrative structure which developed as we filmed with ideas from everyone. We made sure that the work load was even so we all pulled our weight throughout the unit. During the showcase of all the pieces many members admired our hardest scene, which was the 360 degrees turn, which made me very happy as it was extremely hard to do with what we had. I would say if we could do anything different it in the future it would be our organisational skills as every lesson was a case of what do we do today, and decide on the day, we would not always be fully prepared either so we would lose about 30 minuets at the beginning of every lesson, which then made editing and putting sound in very rushed as the deadline was 2 days after we finished filming, to change this I would probably recommend us doing a weekly plan of targets and goals for each lesson. Also another little hiccup was the casting; we should plan to cast in advance as we didn’t and had to use ourselves which was difficult. We should also make sure we white balance every scene so the lighting doesn’t change and the production doesn’t look cheap. Overall I think we did excel ourselves, with a very clever plot and variety of camera shots, we made sure we had every type of shot, also our editing skills we picked up rather quickly so editing was on point and made the peace flow just how we wanted it, the sound was a great touch, like a cherry on the top of the piece, it made everything come together and work at a high level.
-Body language - vulnerable - hunched over.
-Dolly – track round everyone – establishing who’s there
Camera Work
-The women is wearing a red dress and red lipstick – signifies danger, passion and seduction (only thing
Camera Work
Camera Work
