Preliminary Film

Today’s lesson began with excitement! We had 1 hour and a half to film what we had planned last lesson. We decided to film in order of the sequence of shots in the final product, so that it was easier with editing.
The first shot we achieved was to have a worms eye view shot tracking footsteps walking towards it. We all agreed that the camera should be on top of an object that can glide across the floor. Eventually we decided to put it on a t-shirt a pull the t-shirt back as Nicole (the main character) stormed towards it. The idea was good but not thought out enough, the faster Nicole walked towards the camera, the faster we were to pull the camera back was difficult to do without buckling. Another issue was that the corridor we used was never empty, we constantly had people walking front of the camera. To resolve this we each guarded a corner to warn them that filming was in progress. But after so many takes, we eventually got the shot. From here on we basically filmed Nicole walking down the corridor again from different angles such as mid-shot and over the shoulder.Then we filmed Nicole bursting through the door at 2 different angles: Long shot high angel and mid-shot. Then we recorded the clock and a panned it to Yarohey (character two) sitting patiently. We filmed all the dialogue using over the shoulder shots due to time restrictions. We even had students from other groups in the room along one wall as we filmed because it was break time. We recorded over both characters shoulders. We just about managed to get enough footage to edit within the given time.
The second practice filming went well considering it was mine and Caz’s first lesson for filming. It could have been better but we got it all done in the end, considering it was another practice task so that’s all that matters I suppose. Even though I didn’t film in the previous lesson I learnt that it was much easier to use a tripod for a steady shot. The main thing that differed from the first short film to the second was the narrative. We actually constructed some form of a story. I also learnt the effect of recording the same scene from different angles, it worked well for match-cuts.
I feel that my group followed the form of the conventions from a real film but would have preferred to have challenged it, but lack of time held us back. When filming in the classroom the lighting was very poor, Yarohey couldn’t be seen against the light from the window, and when the blinds where closed it was too dark. The rest of the lighting was ok though. We chose to have a simple mise-en-scene. The only things placed within frame were the characters, the clock and the table and chairs they sat on. The other things present wee computers behind Yarohey, the door which Nicole burst through the background people (which couldn’t be avoided) and a few other unnecessary items.
When editing problems were occurring with the log and capture process. Final Cut Pro wouldn’t allow us to upload our footage at first, so we were forced to restart twice. It wasted a lot of valuable editing time so we never managed to finish editing. We just got to the dialogue before we had to stop, this means we didn’t manage to add a shot-reverse-shot. But we managed to get as close to perfect as we could with the match-cuts, with meant the continuity was to a high standard. During editing we were asked why we filmed the clock and panned it to Yarohey. We said that it was supposed to imitate a security camera, so we were advised to do it there and then in case we didn’t finish, good advice considering we didn’t.
I have no comments to make about this practice, the only thing I can say about the representation is that it represents a comedy genre. Nothing more to be said really.