Preliminary task

First we filmed a pre-prelimary task as practice before we got to the actual task. This helped us become familiar with the camera and angles of different shots so that the prelimniary task would be easier to do.

For the actual task we were put into groups of four and asked to go and film in any area of the college.

first we had to decide who would act and who film. I was behind the camera with another student named Julia. While the boys Dahir and Oraldo created a scene.

Our location was outside the cantine, Dahir was already sitting down on a bench and we decided that Oraldo would come through a door to go and join him.

We started with an establishing shot of the area outside the cantine. Next was a close up of Oraldo's necklace, the shot then zoomed out and we used a pan to follow him walking towards the door to go and meet Dahir.

The following shot was an extreme close up on Dahir's watch which then zoomed out into a long shot of him looking at the watch. After this its a medium shot which shows Oraldo coming through the door and a pan which follows him and then a close of up bof the two boy's hands greeting each other.

Next is a close up on Dahir's ear which zooms out into a medium shot of the boy's conversing.

AFter this I executed the 180-degree rule by recording over both boy's shoulders.

Then it was a cutaway showing a football poster, followed by a long shot of the boys.

We then panned Dahir as he went to his lesson then Oraldo as he went to his.

We faced many problems while filming the preliminary task. Many factors affected the overall outcome of the task. For example the location was a mistake as it was a very busy place with people constantly coming back and forth. This meant we had to stop filming at times to let people through. This created a lot of pauses in the piece and it was unable to be continuous.

The next problem we faced was the sound. We could not not hear what the boys were saying most of the time due to the fact that we were in a highly noise polluted area and also because we were filming far away at times in order to zoom in.

To have prevented this, I think we should have chosen a better location, such as a quiet classroom or a less busy area.

I found when watching back the clip that i saw that I zoomed out too fast from Dahir's ears. At the time i knew i had done this but i thought it would be slower on the computer.

When filming the 180-degree rule, I found that i could not use the tripod to steady the camera as the bench was obstructing it. This meant I had to film by hand which made the camera movements shaky and unfocused.

Filming the Preliminary Task was an eye-opener as it showed me how difficult the filming process is. It also gave us practice for when we have to film the main task.

OUR PRELIMINARY TASK

My Brief

The task consists of two elements:

Preliminary task

Film and edit a character opening a door and crossing the room to sit in a chair opposite another character with which he/she then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. Demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Main Task

Create a short fiction film with a minimum of 2 minutes and a maximum of 4 minutes including opening credits and titles. It can be a genre of our choice.

All video and audio material must be originally produced by candidate with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source. Have to create an original script and story board to aid in filming. Both preliminary tasks may be done individually or as a group. Maximum of four per group.

Introduction

My name is Rachel Owusu-Dappah, and I am currently studying As Levels at Haringey Sixth Form College. The subjects I am enrolled in are: English literature, Media, Psychology and Drama. I currently play basketball for the school team, Enfield Phoenix team and also for Middlesex University. My other hobbie's include: reading, writing short stories and poems and public speaking. I believe that my experience with writing short stories will aid me when it comes to writing the scripts for our films.


I chose the subject of Media because I hope that in the future I will get an opportunity to be able to write scripts for major movies alongside my career in Law.