CONTINUITY TASK; Evaluation

How has the continuity task aided your understanding of the film making process?

The continuity task has really helped me to realise that the process of making a film is actually alot more difficult than it seems. The task has definitely been very good practice for when we actually start filming our opening title sequence. All of the problems that we faced making this will help us avoid the same ones when filming our thriller opening title sequence and help us improve on planning, filming and editing.

What problems did we come across during the continuity task and how did we overcome them?
During the continuity task we came across quite a few small problems, that we managed to overcome. Firstly one of the locations we filmed in was unreliable as we had to make sure that room was empty when we needed to film- which we didn't check first. This became a problem as we decided we should re-shoot one of our shots but the room was occupied at the time. In the end we decided to shoot next time it was empty and had to wait until the next day which made timing complicated as we needed to finish shooting and complete the task. Another problem was when we were finishing shooting, we had edited everything and put it all together but weren't happy with the ending due to it not being continuous, however we will learn from this next time and make sure to look back at the shots and see if they have good continuity and if they don't, then re-shoot.

What did you do well on in your continuity task?
In our continuity task, I think our editing was very good and we learnt alot about using Adobe Premier Pro, which will help us immensely when it comes to editing our actual thriller opening title sequence. I also think that it was continuous apart from the last bit which let us down but that's something we will learn from. We had a variety of camera angles and also interaction between characters that we are proud of, and we also stuck to the 180 degree rule.

The storyboarding process and shot list
The storyboarding and shot list was harder than I expected. This is because we didn't realise how much we would actually rely on it until we began this continuity task. Our storyboard however wasn't as accurate as it could have been and this has helped us realise that we need to put more time into it when we making our opening title sequence. The shot list was very helpful and although we changed it around a bit, we still relyed on it alot. This has also helped us understand the importance of research and planning as it would look very unorganised without the planning and the it helped us all with our organisation aswell as we made sure we knew what we were doing at all times. Hannah and I filmed, whilst Finley and Jacob performed in our continuity task, however they both helped with the camera angles and the editing. Another reason research and planning is very important is because it saves a massive amount of time. We hadn't planned the music we were going to include, which meant alot of time trying to find the right piece that fit into our piece.

Overall, this continuity task has really improved all of the group's skills in all three areas; planning, filming and editing. When making the opening title sequence, we now have an idea of what it's going to be like and we know what problems we may face and how we can avoid them.

CONTINUITY TASK

This is our continuity task. Overall I'm happy with how it turned out. The only thing I'm unhappy with is the the ending due to it not being continuous, however we didn't have enough time to re-shoot and therefore will just have to be careful next time to watch back our shots during filming to see if we need to re-do anything.

Practising camera shots

During making our continuity storyboard, we came across a difficulty as we didn't know how to draw a high angle shot or a low angle shot on paper, so we decided to take pictures and see from them how it would be drawn

 (Ignoring the background and focusing on Finley and Jacob) This is our attempt at a high angle shot looking down on Jacob and making him look inferior.

This is our attempt at a low angle shot looking up at Finley, indicating him to be superior. Baring in mind these shots wouldn't be able to go together as it would be breaking the 180 degrees rule, this is because we filmed them over different sided shoulders.

CONTINUITY TASK; Storyboarding

These are our storyboards for our continuity task. I feel that the previous media student that came in to talk about storyboarding really helped us on how to draw different camera angles and perspectives. Whilst drawing this storyboard, we made sure that everyone in the group could understand our storyboard, this is really important as if a member of the group wasnt in one day then we would all be able to understand it and carry on with our work.

In the storyboard, we had to include:

• Variety of camera Angles and Positions
• Sound included in the shot
• We had to make sure we didn't break the 180 rule
• Shot reverse shot
• Interaction between characters

Plot

Since this has to be 60-90 seconds long we had to come up with a short narrative, our plot is simply that Jacob has stolen Finley's pencil case. So we will show Finley looking for Jacob and when he eventually finds him he will confront him and demand for his pencil case back angrily, in which case Jacob will plead to keep it for next lesson, and Finley will get angry, snatch his pencil case back, and storm out of the room. This narrative means that we will be able to include interaction between characters and a variety of camera shots such as close ups, long shots and mid shots. The shot reverse shot will be included when the confrontation begins. We will use high angle shots and low angle shots to denote the characters' status. We will haeve to take into consideration the 180 rule and make sure we don't break it. Another thing we need to think of will be sound. We have in mind tense non-diegetic music to increase Finleys' anger. Overall, I think I have learnt alot from making this storyboard and I think it will really help when filming the continuity task.

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CONTINUITY TASK: planning

Shot list for continuity task
-Long shot of person A entering chikara
-Close up of person A opening door of chikara
-Close up of person A opening door handle of chikara
-Person A walks up and opens second door
-Cuts to drama studio (person A entering)
-Close up of person B's face looking worried
-Establishing shot of person B doing essay
-Low angle over the shoulder shot looking towards person A
-High angle over the shoulder shot looking towards person B
-Low angle over the shoulder shot looking towards person A
-Person A going to hit person B
-Screen goes black
-Person A walking through the door

Locations
-Front of chikara
-Inside chikara (hallway)
-Chikara drama studios

Characters
-Finley Harnett (as person A)
-Jacob Smith (as person B)

Sound
Tense non-diegetic sound


Here are pictures of our location...

This is the outside of the chikara centre. We used this location for an establishing shot of Finley walking in anger up to the door.

This is inside of the chikara centre, we used this for a long shot of Finley looking around for Jacob, the second picture is slightly blurry.

Evaluation questions

I've decided to take a look at the evaluation questions as I feel it will really help me when creating our opening title sequence, this is because I can take into understand what to take into consideration and the main things to include and why.








The questions are briefy about how we've met our target audience and how our opening will compare to other openings that are similar. They also ask about social groups and what we have learnt about technology whilst in the process of making this. I feel after our opening title sequence is complete, I will have a much better and a more advanced understanding of the four technical areas- Mise-en-scene, Editing, Sound and Camera, and how to use them for effect.

Further information on storyboarding

In this lesson, a previous media student and animatic storyboarder came in. She helped us with storyboarding and gave us some really helpful tips on what to include and what not to include.

I have learnt that when making a storyboard, you should use a big arrow to show movement of the camera and small arrows to indicate characters movement. The three tips she gave us were:

1. Bullet point and plan before you storyboard because this way you're organised and know what you're meant to drawing.

2.Don't worry about drawing them in order, and use scrap paper to sketch things out before if you're unsure as you can always cut them out and order them after the storyboard is complete

3.Remember the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is where the screen/box is made up of three sections. If you want a character to be noticed then always place them in the middle, if you want to show that they're unimportant then place them in the margin

This lesson has helped me a lot and talking to Sophie has helped me understand how to place things on a storyboard and how to draw different angles. I think a very important lesson I learnt was the rule of thirds.



This is the video Sophie- The previous media student showed us. This was really interesting and I thought it was very clever how it was drawn and put together. Obviously our storyboards won't be as detailed or as advanced as this because this is animatic but this has given us an idea on how to draw certain angles and given us an insight into animatic storyboarding.