Preliminary Task

My name is Alec Willard and I am an A Level student at Saffron Walden County High School, studying Media Studies at AS and A2. As part of our AS project, we were set a preliminary task. The meaning of this was to help us develop our practical film-making skills and improve in preparation for the main task at AS level. The preliminary task was a group focused project to produce a short clip of a person walking through a door and having a short conversation with someone. The simplicity of the narrative was to showcase three different filming techniques; Match on Action, the 180 Degree Rule and Shot Reverse Shot.

Shot Reverse Shot is a technique often used for conversation between two characters. The camera looks over the shoulder of one character, focusing on another who is at the center of the frame. It then switches the shot to the other characters shoulder, from the same angle and side, when the other character starts to speak, thus having both the 'listener' and the audience focus on the speaking character. It then switches back to the other character. This connects the audience with what the characters see and hear, helping them to interpret both the dialogue and the characters emotions themselves. At first, as the person filming the conversation, I found it difficult to get the framing exact. However, we re-shot the conversation, managing to center the characters in the frame and avoid cropping out the tops of their heads.

Match on Action was also an element of filming that we had to incorporate into the clip. This is why the clip included the opening and shutting of a door. Match on Action is a technique that uses multiple shots from different angles to present something that is happening. In our preliminary task, the opening and the shutting of the door was shown through Match on Action; Firstly, a medium long shot shows a character walking down the corridor and opening the door. It cuts to a close up shot of her hand grabbing and pushing the door handle, before cutting again to a mid shot from inside the room as she opens the door, closes it and sits down in the room. With each shot, we allowed a few seconds before and after each action took place, so that when editing the footage, we could cut the shots together when we wanted, creating a smoother, more natural flow to the actions.

Finally, the 180 Degree Rule utilises only 180 degrees of the frame, remaining on one side of the characters.We used this during the conversation between two characters, keeping the subjects on one side of the camera, thus creating the feeling that the audience is in front of them watching. This is done by pointing the camera over the right shoulder of Character A and then the left shoulder of Character B. Maintaining this whilst using Shot Reverse Shot exemplifies the 180 Degree Rule.