What I have learned from My Preliminary Task
I have learned a great deal from my preliminary task, from simple filming techniques to more complex rules that help make a piece what we see on the larger screen. One of the first basic skills that I learned was how to make a storyboard; it helps immensely whilst you are filming to ensure you remember every shot that you wanted and so that you know which shots people speak in or make certain movements in. Storyboarding not only helped me to stay organised with my filming and editing the clips in the right order, it also helped me to ensure continuity wasn’t an issue in my task.
One of the next important things I learned whilst doing my preliminary task was how to film using a tripod, which involved learning to follow people through the shots as they moved and panning around the scene through large areas of movement. I also learned that you should operate the camera instead of using static shots to capture whole movements, for example, lowering the camera with a person as they sit down instead of keeping the camera still to capture the whole movement. By doing this you also avoid having empty space in the area above the character once they have sat down. That leads onto another point I learned through filming my preliminary task; not to leave great amounts of head room, empty space above the head is useless, so you need to have the camera lower, so that you can capture relevant parts of what you’re filming whilst not wasting space in the shots.
In one of my shots in my preliminary task I had two people sitting opposite each other, it was difficult to use the space well and not have empty space in the shots, but afterwards I realised that if I had turned diagonally a little further in between the two people, then I would have been able to utilise the space more efficiently whilst sticking to my 180˚ rule. This links to probably the most important thing I learned whilst filming and editing my preliminary task; the camera rules, the first of which was the 180˚ rule which I mentioned earlier.
The 180˚ rule allowed for me to keep my shots organised and helped me to maintain a firm structure whilst I was filming the scenario, I knew where I could and couldn’t stand to get my shots, therefore the rule allowed me to be able to match my shots later on without getting confused (which I certainly would have been if I had not followed the 180˚ rule). Another rule which I learned through filming my preliminary task was match-on-action, through following this rule, I realised that certain shots e.g. somebody walking through a door would have to be filmed numerous times from different camera angles and places so that when the clips were edited and put together there were no continuity errors and it allowed for us to see a fluid movement from one place to another, or from one person speaking to another person’s response.
The final main camera rule which I learned was shot/reverse shot, this was a little more challenging for me as I would have to make sure that the actors in the video whose shoulder I was filming over stayed still so that they did not block the face of the person who they were talking to and I was filming. I also realised whilst doing this that scenes would need to be re-enacted numerous times to get the conversations from different angles that I could cut into the final clip, as we had to film the same piece numerous times, I had to be aware of certain continuity errors such as the position the person was sitting in and certain differences in what they may have said.
One of the more complex ideas that I learned from producing my preliminary task was having to match shots and angles. So when filming a close up of somebody or in shot/reverse shot, making sure that the angle you are filming from is as close as you can get to the angle the person you are filming next to is seeing the scene from. I also learned that it is good to try and match eye-lines in shots, which is difficult, but is something that can help make two shots flow and look more natural once edited together.
Another invaluable thing I learned from editing my preliminary task and putting it together was how to use Final Cut. I managed to get my head around the basics of the program and learned how to do things such as cutting clips and removing audio.
Overall I have learned a huge amount from my preliminary task; it will be invaluable to me once I start filming my next piece. I am now aware of many new skills and techniques that will help me with my future work with cameras and editing.
