Strengths&weaknesses of preliminary task.

Strengths:

I think the use of sound effects on our clip was effective and realistic. We inserted a clip of a school bell which was realistic to the environment where we filmed our clip. We also timed it correctly on adobe, so that the sound effect did not run into the conversation.

We also effectively used the 180 degree rule, whereby we did not pass the line to make the clip look disorientated. This was the main rule that we did not want to break, and i feel we did this successfully.

We used match on action in our clip as well. We used this, when the character with the blonde hair is walking down the stairs. We filmed a medium shot of her walking down the stairs, and then a close up shot of her walking down the stairs. I feel this is successful as we accurately timed it, making sure the character was on the correct step at the correct timing to make sure there was no accidental jump cuts in the clip.

We are incorporated a shot reverse shot in the conversation between the blonde and the brunette characters. We used over the shoulder shots to show the conversation. By using a shot reverse shot, it makes sure that the audience is not talking to themselves. It also ensures that the conversation flows properly, and makes sure that the viewers are not left confused if there was any mistakes made.

My favorite shot is this one on the right. I think this because it shows the rule of thirds in filming. It made the audience look directly at
the blonde character, but makes us sympathise with the
brunette character, as she is seen as the innocent one in the clip.








weaknesses: 
 There is one key point that stands out in our clip, which i believe is a fault. Its when the brunette character falls back slightly in laughter, and then quickly jumps to the other character. This breaks the rules of continuity in filming. It makes the audience automatically switch back to reality, and makes them realise that its just a bunch of teenagers filming.

Although we did include the rule of 3 effectively in some shots, there were other scenes where this is not used as well.  In this shot, the rule of thirds is broken. The audience automatically looks at the door in the background, rather than the brunette character. This makes the scene look disorientated and messy.

Preliminary task

Rules of Continuity in filming

Continuity in filming, is a system of cutting used to maintain continuous and clear narrative action, by following a set of rules. Some of the rules include: the 180 degree rule, shot reverse shot, match on action and many others.

The benefits:
 By having these sets of rules, it makes the film/clip have a more flowing structure that looks realistic. By breaking these rules, your video can look disoriented, messy and can confuse the audience.
It can also make it easier to watch the film, without getting drawn back to reality.

The 180 degree rule:

"A rule stating that a camera should be placed somewhere inside 180 degrees on a particular side of the invisible line of a shot containing two people filmed in sequence.  If the camera crosses the line, confusion results for the film viewers, because it makes it look like the people are switching places as one watches the film. "- creative glossary.

This rule is the main, fundamental element to do with filming.  Its very important not to cross " the line of vision"  between the two characters that you are filming. Otherwise, the audience will not be able to make sense of what is going on in the scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdyyuqmCW14

 I found the above clip helpful in interpreting the rule. It gives an example of a man and a women. The man is on the left, and the women is on the right. It explains how the eye line must also match, otherwise the character talking, can look like they are talking to themselves.

Match on action:

"Cutting on action or matching on action refers to film editing and video editing techniques where the editor cuts from one shot to another view that matches the first shot's action. A common example is a man walking up to a door and reaching for the knob."- Wikipedia
 
It is the basic idea that, one shot cuts to another, demonstrating the action of the first shot. It is usually done using two cameras, as it is very difficult to do with one camera, as you have to get the angles, and mise-en-scene the same in each shot.  After filming, in editing you can crop/cut the two shots together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laUPi7MPOSQ

I found this link useful in presenting the match on action in film. when the lady is turning the pages, we can see the camera has shot the action twice, but has zoomed in on the second time.

Shot Reverse Shot:

Shot reverse shot (or shot/countershot) is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. - Wikipedia

In essence, it is a shot showing what the character is looking at either through a over the shoulder shot or in a point of view. Then followed by a reverse camera shot of the character themselves looking at it, or the other character looking at them for example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Ey0a6LJRA

I found this clip useful, in analysing how the shot reverse shot is used. We can also see the two characters eyelines, which makes the clip to look more realistic.

Using Adobe

Personally, i had never used Adobe Premiere ever before, so i was expecting it to be complicated and challenging, which is was but we managed to figure it out with a bit of help from out teacher.

We enjoyed using the Adobe Premiere software. We felt it was easy to work, had simplistic icons and buttons, which made it easier to edit our film. We thought it was very easy to import our video clips, and insert them onto Adobe. We then clicked the "crop" button, which allowed us to crop our video clip to the part we wanted in the finished version.

We found using the sound difficult to edit. We got the non-copyrighted soundtrack of YouTube converter. We then uploaded the material to Adobe Premier. This part was easy. However, fitting the soundtrack to the correct timings of the video clips was much harder. We saw that there was a lot more sound editing on the software than we anticipated, but we managed to adjust a few buttons on the sound settings, which made the clip sound right in the end.

Other constructive feedback on first technical task

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93HVYJSRDYk

Feedback from other people:

We were told that our use of setting was effective. They liked that we changed areas for each scene. They said this made our clip "relatable" and "realistic". They also liked the use of different camera shots, as it showed a wider range of knowledge and skills.


We received a range of different feedback from other groups, which helped us to understand what to do, in order to achieve a better and more successful video clip.

The first was to change the sound altogether. Having a "beach waves" soundtrack to our clip, was said to be "irrelevant" and " unrealistic". To improve, we were suggested to use a different soundtrack such as a sound clip or children playing. This way, it would suit the environment much more.

We were also advised to possibly put a filter on our clip such as black and white, or sepia. By doing this, they said it would make our clip have some kind of genre added to it, which would make our clip much more realistic, and interesting.

 Lastly, we were advised to include camera movement. I agree with this strongly. I feel even if we used a "zoom" in one of our clips, it would make it more captivating, and a show a larger range of skills.

using Adobe- strengths&weaknesses

Strengths of our clip:

long shot 

I think our clip shows different camera angles successfully. Each clip, is taken at a different angle, which helps to make it more interesting. The first shot, is a medium shot, of the camera straight foward on our character.  This way, we can see the facial expressions and clothing of our character. We then jump cut, to the next scene, which is a long shot. I think having a long shot is effective also, as you can see the character is wearing, and also see their body language.  We then have a over the shoulder shot, of 2 of the characters, which helps to show our range of skills with the camera.

medium shot 

We experimented using sound on adobe. We found this challenging, as the sound on the devices we recorded with was not very good, so we had to adjust the sound levels to be able to achieve a successful clip. We downloaded a non-copyrighted sound clip of beach waves. Although this did not particularly suit the environment of the clip, it still demonstrated that we can use sound in our clip. I thought this was a good strength of our video.

over the shoulder shot 

     weaknesses of our clip:
   I feel like we could have made the sound better. I don't think it is very easy to recognise that sound has been used, as it is so quiet. To improve, we would adjust the sound levels, so that it is loud enough to hear the clip, but not too loud, that you cannot hear our voices.

I also think that we should try to be more serious. This was our first time using the cameras, so we found it hard to film using the same line. So we would try not to laugh when filming our next videos.

Finally, i feel that there was no camera movement in the videos. We could try to interpret some panning of the camera, or a zoom. This way, it would make the clips more interesting, and exciting to watch.

 SELF TARGETS FOR THE FUTURE:

* USE SOME KIND OF CAMERA MOVEMENT IN THE VIDEO CLIPS.
* EDIT THE SOUND, SO IT IS NOTICEABLE IN THE CLIP.
* TRY NOT TO LAUGH, TAKE IT MORE SERIOUSLY.

Using Adobe video