Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task

Evaluation

For our preliminary task we wanted to incorporate more of a story than just someone walking into a room and wanted there to be a subplot. Although with more planning it could have been longer and included a wider variety of shot types I still believe we did a good job. I think it was helpful to get our head around what filming a scene was like and If we had all the time in the world we could have been more creative with the setting and plot but I think it what we filmed and edited was enough to sustain the audiences interest and put into practice the different rules we had learnt. We also realised how key dialogue was as well as how important acting is as it's got to be believable or people will get bored and be paying more attention to the fact some students who can't act or write made this rather than the story on screen.
For such a basic, relatively boring scene we knew we needed to vary the shot types to sustain interest but also show the basic shot types we had learnt (shot reverse shot, match on action). The opening shot was a high angle one showing our character to be vulnerable and maybe worried as she entered the room. In an ideal world I would have loved to have shot this from the other corner and have the shot like it was from a CCTV camera but this wasn't practical so we stuck with what we had and I think it is a more interesting opening shot then in some other openings.
The second shot was a contradicting low angle shot as our character walked across the room, the camera panned round tracking the character to show she was important and highlight the fact she may be about to do/see something that affects the storyline. A low angle was used to vary shot types and showed the character in a higher position, maybe because now she's in a classroom she has returned to her high status (teacher) or feels more at home in her classroom.
We then used match on action to show a close up of her phone ringing, tea setting the idea that something bad may happen and it draws in the audience - proving  having a plot is key.
Initially we were only going to have one character but we realised in order for there to be dialogue, a reason for her to verbalise her problems, we needed another character (we also needed this to achieve shot reverse shot). Up stepped character number two who we initially see from inside the room from behind character ones shoulder so we are still inside the environment we know and can see the problem (her phone ringing - who is it?). We then go on to use shot reverse shot whilst using the 180 degree rule and trying out the rule of thirds - highlighting our camera techniques. Using cross cutting could have been a good idea, showing the two different characters in their settings before they unite but we could use this in our opening two minutes so are learning from our mistakes.

The final shot is off character one, the main character, as she delivers her dialogue that's supposed to build suspense and drama, leaving her as he final shot reinforces the idea that she's the one with the issue to be solved and she's the one were supposed to feel empathetic towards.