The purpose of this Preliminary task was to get used to and understand the basic requirements of filming.
Our location was a room without big windows and the smalls windows providied very little light. The room was bare exept for a table and chair. This was good because we concentrated on the actors and lighting. On account of there being two large lights the whole room was quite bright and harsh. The lights were focussed on the door and chair. This was important because we were able to concentrate on what the actors were doing and saying and our minds were not occupied by other forniture or movement.
The camera man set up the camera in a position to get the best view of the two people. Before the camera shot was taken, he checked the tripod was level the shot was frame correctly and good angles were chosen, and ensuring that there was a clear view of the actors and no sight of the lighting equipment.
For the shots we used Long shots, Medium shots, close uspand shoulder shots. The essistants used the correct terms so everyone what was happening.
The exercies was useful for getting used to how to set up a film shot.
This little sequence shows the result of what we did on our first preliminary task shooting day. Everything was very easy going. This was important and effective for the first preliminary task shooting day, as we could try out different things, like lighting, camera work and sound. Because it was our first time we were shooting, it was also very unusual for us. You can see this in our sequence. Because we were quite inexperienced, we abided ourselves as much as we could on the storyboard we were given. This was important as we also had an idea which shots we do have to take and are important. After looking at this sequence the first time, we thought that the lighting for example is a bit to bright. Furthermore the use of voice from the actors is very echo like.
It was very difficult for us also to work with the actors, as we had no experience of working like this as a team. Everything was very spontaneous.
After we looked at it, we saw a few things we thought we could do better. For example, as we were just concentrated on the given storyboard, we couldn’t rely include many ideas. Furthermore we were also very unconfident which you can probably see in the little sequence. The camera work is very poor, as we didn’t rely used lots of different positions. We could use more, such as extreme close ups and long shots. Playing around with the positions would be more interesting or action like.
The chosen location was not very effective, as it was very dark and so we had to set up lots of bright lights. This was not very effective, as this whole sequence looks very unnatural and the light is disturbing the whole action from my point of view. There is also lots of space and no pace trough this whole sequence.
