Preliminary Exercise

This is my preliminary exercise. Me and my group where assigned to record our very own thriller scene and we managed to to do so. We put a lot of effort into this exercise to try achieve new accomplishments by experimenting with some new camera techniques and new editing skills.

• In these two screen grabs below it shows me editing two seperate video clips and putting them together to create match on action.

• Firstly we recorded from behind my actor walking away from the camera towards a near by door. Our second take was from the other side of the door where my actor walks in. The camera was placed on my actors right.

• We then did a straight cut between these two clips at a perfect time to give full effect on the match on action as it creates great continuity making it very hard to even recognize the straight cut within the editing as it seems very natural. 

• At first when our teacher explained to us how match on action works I thought this would be very difficult to do, as we tried it i felt a lot more confident in my skills as it wasn't as difficult as i thought it would be.

• In these two screen grabs it shows my example of a shot reverse shot.

• We had to take two different video clips and put them together, our first over the shoulder shot was over my actors left shoulder in the purple jumper & my second over the shoulder shot was over my actors right shoulder in the red shirt. We edited them together with straight cuts giving us a feel of a conversation.

• I found this slightly more difficult to do as i had to make sure we didn't brake the 30 degree rule while recording taking these two over the shoulder shots.We also where aware of the audio while taking these shots as we realized the script had to stay the same; if it differed within the shots the conversation would be unclear and may have lost its meaning. We managed to pull it off in the end though i feel it should have had some more shot reverse shots within my thriller scene.

• In this screen grab it shows me editing the audio within my thriller opening.

• Using the razor tool i had to split the audio into sections. Once i did this i used the pen tool to add spots on my audio allowing me to create a manual fade. I used this fade to make the none diegetic audio volume drop while the conversation took place. This made the diegetic audio more clear to listen to as it was louder then the sound track

• At first i didn't know how to do this manual fade but with some experimenting i managed to do it in the end. I feel this was the hardest thing within the thriller scene as it took me a long time to figure out how to do it.

As we did this project we had to keep in mind many things such as mise-en-scene

• We made sure that everyone is wearing the appropriate clothing (smart school wear) to match the situation of our shots taking place in the school.

• Props & objects where used such as pens, couches, tables & paper just to make the most of our facilities to give a school atmosphere within our shots.

We made sure used a wide variety of shots/angles within our opening

1. Long shot
2. Medium shot (low angle)
3. Long shot (high angle)
4. Low angle (medium shot)
5. Long shot (walking away from camera)
6. Medium shot (match on action with shot 5)
7. Medium shot walking down stairs towards camera
8. Long shot (low angle match on action with shot 7)
9. Extreme close-up (hand on handle)
10. Medium shot (walking into classroom)
11. High angle medium shot of two actors
12. Over shoulder shot (actor in purple conversation)
13. Over shoulder shot (actor in red conversation)
14. High angle medium shot of both actors
15. Medium shot of both actors talking
16. Long shot (low angle)
17. Medium shot (walking off exiting the classroom)
18. Medium shot walking into the 'Six form office'

Editing was also well we where able to expand on our skills and try new things

• Straight cuts are used to create match on action & a conversation
• We edited audio to adjust volume levels allowing us to sync clips with audio better as shown in the screen grab above.

- We definitely should of tried more editing techniques such as colour/contrast etc. this will be done in our next exercise.

Sound was done well as we covered all types of sound (Diegetic & Non-diegetic)

• Diegetic sounds (sounds from a source in the story) was used a lot within our shots. Dialog was used a lot and so was sounds from objects; such as tables being hit and doors being slammed closed. These are all examples of when diegetic sounds where used

• Non-diegetic sounds (sounds coming from a source which isn't in the story) where used through a sound track. The soundtrack was used to build tension within the audience as it was a dramatic and tense sound track.

Over all i feel we did very well on this exercise as we managed to include many new camera angles/shots and develop our editing skills; though i feel that there's a lot of room for improvement. Especially with my editing skills e.g. putting clips to create smoother continuity & by trying new ways of editing (transition fades etc). Despite this on a all we did well in this exercise.