Pratical Production Diary

Research and Planning
In this project the task set was to present the three continuity rules through film and have a scene of someone walking into a room, sitting opposite another charecter and have them exchange a couple of sentences in conversation. Me and my partner thought of ways in which would be good to stage this kind of production, we thought of why a character would walk into a room to face someone else, and we also thought of what kind of setting would be good in order to make it work successfully and make sense. Initially my and my partners idea revolved around the idea of a break in, in which a man walks into the house through the back door and then bumps into another character in the kitchen and here they exchange some aggressive dialogue, this way a perfect 180 degree rule shot would take place, along with shot reverse shot between the conversation and also a match on action when the man breaks into the house, unfortunatly due to time and some other circumstances this initial idea had to be changed.

Construction

The process in which we came up with our next idea was a very quick one. We decided to make our production take place within some school toilets, we thought this was a good place for our production to exist as in general life many tentative conversations take place with in the school toilets. I think this worked well as we put in place all three of the continuity rules. We thought of dress to be casual, something in which an ordinary person would wear in an environment such as this so casual wear would be appropriate as they are two girls talking o each other in a girls toilet.

We start of with a long shot of a girl walking toward the toilets and pushing the door open as she pushes the door a view of her walking in from the other side would be shown in a match on action shot. the camera would then cut to an over the shoulder shot of the same girl when she starts speaking to another girl of whom is stood by the toilet mirrors. A series of over the shoulder, shot reverse shots are used along with the 180 degree rule in place throughout the conversation, in which is a argument, takes place.

Evaluation

This worked well as you can see a heated conversation is being taken place, with all three of the continuity rules being used. The match on action shot worked extremely well, it is a very smooth cut and almost perfect timing, the only slight error is that you can see that the girls arm isn't touching the door as she is when she moves in, so this isn't a perfect mach on action shot, therefore next time we are considering match on action we had to consider all the factors of this type of shit more throughly. Also when we are considering the 180 degree rule in this scene we see the camera jumps so the two girls within the actions head aren't on level to one another, this is because we felt we needed more film for the piece, so the last 2 to 3 seconds are filmed in a hurry, without a tripod. To make this piece more successful more time on our part would need to be put aside in order to do so.

Three rules of continuity.

In this clip are examples of three different types of editing; these types of editing are the shot reverse shot, 180-degree rule and also match on action.

Shot reverse shot is a shot used between two characters generally in conversation, or some sort of conflict of speech. We see that in this clip. The two characters are arguing with each other but it only stays on each of the characters faces for a maximum of 2-3 seconds. The camera jolts back and two between the both of them. This editing technique is used in order for the viewers to see who is in the shot and to also see the reactions of what is being said on their faces. If it didnt switch between the two faces in conversation, we would only see one persons reaction and the continuity would be broken.

The 180 degree rule is when two characters in a scene and again in a conversation of some sort with each other stay with in the same left two right scenario, in this scene when we look at Phil for example we see that when the camera looks over Grants shoulder, he is always slightly to the left side of the screen, if we then move to a shot that is over Phil’s shoulder instantly we see that Grant is slightly based toward the right side of the screen, this technique is put in place in order to establish the fact that these two characters are actual in conversation so that it isn’t confusing for the viewer. If we has the camera crossing over Phil’s left shoulder looking at Grant, the camera would be crossing a line, the 180 degree line. Things would instantly look strange and we would have both Phil and Grant when looking at there faces on the same side of the screen and there fore it wouldn’t look as if they were in conversation with each other. It distorts the viewing and would make the viewer confused if the camera crossed this line. The camera stays on the same side of the line within an 180 degree angle here, therefore it is following the 180 degree rule.

Match on action is slightly different; this is when the camera actually cuts to another shot in the middle of some sort of dramatic event. This scene does exactly that, such as in this scene the car crashes into the river. We see the car crash in to the river, but as we see it crashing the camera jumps and cuts to different angles of the car we see it from a front view a side view and a high angle shot of it crashing into the river. This is used as it makes the scene flow much more smoothly and we get different angle of the car. We then a close p for the bubbles so we can see the fact that the characters are in the water, drowning. The shot then cuts onto a Man diving into the river and also a car driving up towards the riverbank. The camera cuts straight from the action to other event going on.

Introduction

This blog has been put in place in order to gather information and present into throughout my media practical production work.