Our film tells the story of a boy who turns up late to a detention, where he is told to write down that he will never eat in class again, which was the cause of him having to turn up late, and it ends with the teacher taking out a chocolate bar of his own that he eats in the class after the boy leaves.
I worked with Eleanor Lynch and Jerom Thambioillai to make our continuity video. Eleanor created a shoot schedule and the list of props we needed. She also did most of the camera work during the filming process. Jerom wrote the script for the dialogue and edited the shots with me from the film in which he acted as the student character having a detention for eating in class. I created the storyboard and put the idea forward for the story to be set in a detention with myself playing the teacher and Jerom playing the student. We made the reason behind the detention to do with eating a chocolate bar in class, as it seemed a silly reason, giving an element of humor to the story for the audience to find funny. Our group was split into two for the editing process, so Eleanor edited by herself, whilst I edited with Jerom to create our film.
2) How did you plan your sequence? What process did you use? What theories did you try to take into account?
During the planning process, we began by holding a group discussion to come up with a story idea and then we created a storyboard to understand what we were going to shoot shot-by-shot, making sure that all our shots were matched on action and continuity flowed throughout. We then created a shooting schedule to save time over the filming process by keeping good organisation, and a props list to understand what we needed to bring in on the day of the shooting. Also we made descriptions for each type of shot, so that we could include a variety of different shot types, making sure the cross-cutting would work, and making sure that we did not break the 180-degree rule or the 30-degree rule, and that we included eye-line matches and shot reverse during the shooting process, so that we could stick by the brief we were given for the preliminary, continuity exercise. We focused on the position of each character during each shot and on the representation of the authority of the teacher and the fear of the student, who went to the detention, so as to create a tense atmosphere that we wanted for the school, and this was aided by the fact that we did actually shoot these clips in school in a media classroom, so the story worked with the setting we used, and I remembered to bring in a suit that would make sure the audience understood that the character I was playing was a teacher.
3) What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?
To complete the film continuity task we used:
4) What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?
We had to follow our bief, showing the techniques we had to use when filming a continuous sequence of dialogue, e.g. we must not break the 180-degree rule. The space of the room was also taken under consideration, for we could take use of the filming space outside and inside the media suite. We also had to think about how many shots we could actually shoot in the forty minute period we had in the lesson, so we had to take off some of the shots from our original storyboard plan that had well over twenty possible shots for shooting. As well as that, due to the fact we had three people in our group, only a maximum of two people could appear on camera for each shot. We also made sure to have a mastershot for each setting in the film, so that we could keep continuity throughout in case certain shots did not match up. We also made sure to follow the brief by exchanging at least two lines between Jerom and I in the classroom.
5) How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently?
I felt that overall the film was successful on the basis that it seemed to show a good level of continuity throughout with smooth cuts of door openings, good use of cross cutting, variety of shot types, showing an eye-line match shot, following the 30 and 180-degree rules, so as to successfully follow the brief that was given to us for the exercise. However, the starting position of the teacher on the chair should not have been facing gorwards at the beginning of the film, for later on it was facing backwards at the board, and in the story the teacher should have asked the student what he would not do in the future instead of what he did do, for it didn't make absoloute sense when Jerom wrote, 'I will not eat in class', on the sheet he was given due to the context of what was asked for him by the teacher. Also shot 4 of the clock could have been filmed better if the clock was more centered in the shot and it was filmed at a lower angle to match the teacher's eye sight more clearly for audience understanding. I think that their also should have been more action in the shots to create a higher energy even if the slowness of dialogue did present a more tense atmosphere, I still feel that would have made the film more exciting and less dull.
6) What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?
The first thing I learnt after completing this task was to be more organised when scheduling what we will be doing in media at different times in the future, which will be achieved by being more attentive in class, so that I do not have to rush when we come down to shooting time as I had to do during the shoot, for I did that during the filming day for this exercise, having to make storyboards in the little time before the shooting commences and not remembering to get a chocolate bar for the film, and so having to run to buy one from the local shop beforehand. I, therefore learnt organisation is key and rightfully expected of you when taking part in creating a film, so that you can shoot with less time constraints and stress. I also learnt that I should work more independently outside the class to organise to meet with members of my group to learn lines and character blocking when it comes down to the shoot, so that everyone has more of a clear understanding of what to do when it comes time for the shooting to commence. I will now try more in the future to delegaate more tasks to other people instead of running the risk of taking care of too many tasks myself, i.e. storyboarding and bringing in the props, for I felt that I had a bit too much unnecessary stress when filming and getting everything right for deadlines. As well as that, I will take a greater focus on having a more detailed shooting schedule to follow, so as to stop the threat of being rushed due to this slight lack of organisation that we had due to the vagueness of the shooting schedule that we followed for the filming process. I learnt that we were successful with the comprehensive storyboard visualisation and I will attempt to show that same level of detail for future projects, because that understanding of the cohesiveness of the story structure and the camera levels from the storyboard was very useful for sustaining the level of continuity that our group showed in the preliminary exercise, so that our group can be organised on set and follow the requirements from the brief given to us.
3) What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?
To complete the film continuity task we used:
- The Canon HFG30 camera that we used on manual settings.
- A Shotgun microphone needed to pick up the dialogue and background sounds.
- A tripod that was helpful when keeping the camera steady and using the tripod arm for the pan shots. However, we did take the camera of the tripod when filming the clock in shot four, for it wasn't tall enough to film the clock at the angle we wanted.
- A clapperboard that helped organise our shots and the number of takes we had done.
- Adobe Premier Pro software on a PC to edit our shots together.
4) What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?
We had to follow our bief, showing the techniques we had to use when filming a continuous sequence of dialogue, e.g. we must not break the 180-degree rule. The space of the room was also taken under consideration, for we could take use of the filming space outside and inside the media suite. We also had to think about how many shots we could actually shoot in the forty minute period we had in the lesson, so we had to take off some of the shots from our original storyboard plan that had well over twenty possible shots for shooting. As well as that, due to the fact we had three people in our group, only a maximum of two people could appear on camera for each shot. We also made sure to have a mastershot for each setting in the film, so that we could keep continuity throughout in case certain shots did not match up. We also made sure to follow the brief by exchanging at least two lines between Jerom and I in the classroom.
5) How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently?
I felt that overall the film was successful on the basis that it seemed to show a good level of continuity throughout with smooth cuts of door openings, good use of cross cutting, variety of shot types, showing an eye-line match shot, following the 30 and 180-degree rules, so as to successfully follow the brief that was given to us for the exercise. However, the starting position of the teacher on the chair should not have been facing gorwards at the beginning of the film, for later on it was facing backwards at the board, and in the story the teacher should have asked the student what he would not do in the future instead of what he did do, for it didn't make absoloute sense when Jerom wrote, 'I will not eat in class', on the sheet he was given due to the context of what was asked for him by the teacher. Also shot 4 of the clock could have been filmed better if the clock was more centered in the shot and it was filmed at a lower angle to match the teacher's eye sight more clearly for audience understanding. I think that their also should have been more action in the shots to create a higher energy even if the slowness of dialogue did present a more tense atmosphere, I still feel that would have made the film more exciting and less dull.
6) What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?
The first thing I learnt after completing this task was to be more organised when scheduling what we will be doing in media at different times in the future, which will be achieved by being more attentive in class, so that I do not have to rush when we come down to shooting time as I had to do during the shoot, for I did that during the filming day for this exercise, having to make storyboards in the little time before the shooting commences and not remembering to get a chocolate bar for the film, and so having to run to buy one from the local shop beforehand. I, therefore learnt organisation is key and rightfully expected of you when taking part in creating a film, so that you can shoot with less time constraints and stress. I also learnt that I should work more independently outside the class to organise to meet with members of my group to learn lines and character blocking when it comes down to the shoot, so that everyone has more of a clear understanding of what to do when it comes time for the shooting to commence. I will now try more in the future to delegaate more tasks to other people instead of running the risk of taking care of too many tasks myself, i.e. storyboarding and bringing in the props, for I felt that I had a bit too much unnecessary stress when filming and getting everything right for deadlines. As well as that, I will take a greater focus on having a more detailed shooting schedule to follow, so as to stop the threat of being rushed due to this slight lack of organisation that we had due to the vagueness of the shooting schedule that we followed for the filming process. I learnt that we were successful with the comprehensive storyboard visualisation and I will attempt to show that same level of detail for future projects, because that understanding of the cohesiveness of the story structure and the camera levels from the storyboard was very useful for sustaining the level of continuity that our group showed in the preliminary exercise, so that our group can be organised on set and follow the requirements from the brief given to us.
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