Filming and Editing the Preliminary Exercise

I was unable to make it to the filming of my Preliminary Exercise because i was unwell. I asked the members of my group how it went and they said it went good but was unable to find a clock on the day so we have got to find one, set it to the right time and then edit it into the scene. I am more determined to make a good job of the main exercise now because i didn't see what goes on whilst filming. I am disappointed that i couldn't go the the filming because i wanted to learn new skills such as seeing how the camera was used. I was the scriptwriter for the Preliminary Exercise, so for the main exercise i want to learn something different and maybe take up the role of director or using the camera. I want to challenge myself and show that even though i have very little knowledge of what to do i can do it with some help from my group members.

When we was planning i think in our scene we did manage to create representations that the audience would understand. We did this through camera angles, dialogue and dress codes. Straight away in our scene you know the teacher is the dominant character because he says 'come in' and is dressed in smart clothes, at the end the teacher also says 'sit down'. The pupil is listening to the teacher because he has a higher authority. We used inter-diegetic gaze throughout our scene so the audience focus on what the characters are looking at and we used the 180 degree rule to show the characters having a conversation. I was looking through a group members blog and she said that one of the actors pulled out but they managed to find a replacement. Even though they found a replacement the clothes he was wearing didn't fit the dress code of a teacher so in the filming we didn't create a representation of a teacher through dress codes.

I have read through one of my group members blogs to see if they followed the script and storyboards whilst filming. She said that throughout the filming they stuck to the original script and used the storyboard to guide them through the framing and camera movements. Our storyboard and script was very detailed so it was easy to follow so this probably helped them alot whilst filming.

We did manage to employ the technical codes such as 180 degree rule, inter diegetic gaze and different shot types. We used close up shots to show the characters emotion, mid shots to show the two characters talking, over the shoulder shots which shows the back of the talking characters head and the other characters face to see reactions.

Today the editor of our group wasn't in the lesson so the rest of the group had to do the editing. I wasn't there for the filming but today my group showed me the scene they had filmed. It looked good but the only thing we could have improved on was the framing. The characters were to close to the edge of the frame but we can improve on this for the main exercise. When filming the group was unable to find a clock for one of the last shots. In today's lesson we got a clock and filmed that shot so we could edit it in. When we watched it back the camera was shaking but we couldn't do much about it without using a tripod. Lee said to us if we want to get a steady camera we can rest the camera on our hand and this will improve it, this is something we have learnt and will do better in the main exercise.

I haven't been there for any of the editing apart from today's lesson. I have never used Windows Movie Maker before so didn't really understand what to do but wanted to learn. I watched the rest of my group to get the hang of what they were doing and i now have an idea of how to use it. I now have some knowledge of how to edit and i can improve on this in the main exercise. Whilst editing we noticed a few mistakes such as the pupil entered the room without a bag but stood up to leave with one and when we filmed the over the shoulder shot we noticed the eyeline wasn't correct, this is something else to look for and improve on in the main exercise.

At the top of this post is our final product for the preliminary exercise. I am very pleased with the final outcome as it conveys all the technical codes through camera work such as the 180 degree rule, editing such as cutting and mis-en-scene such as dress codes, props and location. We have learnt alot from the preliminary exercise and will hope to improve on things such as actors being to close to the edge of the frame and having a steady camera. I think it is very well done for our first lot of filming and editing.