Prelim Task: Part 1

On Wednesday, the 7^th of October, we came into class and were given several instructions:

• We will go up into the studio
• You will be divided into groups
• You will be given a storyboard
• You will be given a camera
• You will have an hour to film your sequence on the storyboard
• If you have all your necessary shots filmed, you can film other shots to make your sequence more interesting

I was paired up in a group with Mia McCallum, Amr Abdulkader, and Daisy Doidge-Hill to create said sequence. When we got the task, we were also required to write our names on a white piece of paper, hold it infront of the camera, and film it for about 10 seconds, so people would know who to give credit to.

The storyboard we were given before filming, including the script that the actors had to learn.

We had almost immediately agreed, even before we got the storyboard, that Amr and Mia would be the actors, and that Daisy and I would be switching in between camera and the director. When we got the storyboard, the first thing we did was figure out where we wanted the characters and the camera to be placed. As there was a door shown in the storyboard, we decided that we would have Amr come in through the door as well – at first we considered having Amr just walk into the shot, however this wouldn't have made the shot as interesting and would be quite boring to watch. This also made it easier for us to be aware of the 180°-rule, as the door was right next to a table and a wall, so that we had no opportunity to break the rule whilst filming.  

When we had finished filming the necessary scenes, we went onto filming other scenes that “thought outside the box”. We included a mid-long-shot filmed through a bunch of pens and pencils, to show some of the foreground, and to give the audience the impression that they are engaged in the scene more than they think they are. We also added in some extreme-close-ups of both of the actors' eyes to make the scene more intense; the scene itself is already quite intense, depending on how it was executed, and just to add that little extra piece of information. We also added a close-up of the feet to show character positioning, however how it is going to match in within the sequence isn't quite clear to me yet. It might add more action in the sequence, but it may also be an unnecessary shot that we filmed anyway. Maybe it may come in handy, who knows.  

Setting up the camera before filming.

Whilst we were filming we had to film the entire scene over, and over, and over again. This made it especially hard to get every single shot that was necessary, because things would go wrong very easily. Either the actors would mess up their lines, someone would laugh, or most annoying of all (because we were filming inside a classroom with a windowed door and windows that are in the shot), people walking past outside. It wasn't an issue when we were filming the over-the-shoulder shot or close-up with Mia, as she was faced the other way, and you couldn't see the door or window; however when filming Amr's scenes, it usually turned out to be a mess. We would either have to spend time waiting for all the people to have passed, or we would have to ask them to please wait, or move out of the shot quickly. This took up some of our time whilst we could have been filming; we did use set terminology like “Stand-By” - “Standing By”, “Camera Rolling” - “Rolling”, and “Action”, which meant that we also always checked our scenes to see if there was anything faulty in it, however sometimes things just didn't work in our favour. Another thing that cost us more of our time, was that the camera was on auto-focus when we first got it. We didn't check whether the camera was on the manual setting or not, so the over the shoulder shots focused on the shoulder instead of on the actor – we only realised this after we had finished filming all the necessary sequences and were getting creative with it, causing us to have to go back and refilm all the over the shoulder shots, focusing on the actor instead of on the shoulder. Thankfully I had realised this before we had finished filming completely, otherwise we would have had blurry footage when editing next week; since we didn't watch our clips back to save time, and to not make the actors self-conscious about their acting, we were just lucky that someone out of the group had noticed that. That is definitely something that we have to watch out for when we film our thriller, because we probably won't have time to refilm everything if there's one small thing like having the camera on auto-focus instead of on manual settings.

Another problem that we ran into is that our actors didn't quite know their lines. Even though it was a very simple script, it was very easy to mess up on. When creating our thrillers in the future, I think it would be best to give the script to the actors beforehand, even if they only only have one line, or none at all. There are stage directions included in the script which the actors have to know so they don't have to improvise on set, which could go very well, but on the other hand, could also go very badly. I think the script should be given to the actors about a week to three days before they are required on set, which gives them time to look at the script and learn the basics of it. If they forget part of a line, or mess up once or twice, it's not as big of a deal; rather that than having them come on set and them doing everything differently in each shot; the shots have to match up because of continuity, and if the actor says something different in every shot, there is a problem when it comes to editing the thriller.  

Also, as mentioned before, when shooting our thriller, we will really have to consider our locations. Filming in a room with a lot of big windows people pass by often isn't a very good idea which could cost us a lot of precious time, or one crew member who would usually have an important role on set, standing there, allowing people to pass by the room. It is highly unlikely that our thriller will be filmed in a classroom, but it is still something that has to be considered beforehand.

Something else that we will have to do before getting to film our thriller, is creating a storyboard. This will most likely be done anyway, however I think it is important for the storyboard to be quite detailed; it can be very easy to run into problems if the entire thing isn't planned beforehand, and things could always change – just like the when considering the location and when giving the actor the script, it could lead to continuity issues otherwise. I would rather have too much planned than too little which could cause giant issues and could waste a lot of time on set; we have to be considerate of our time, but also of the actors' – they will most likely be giving up some of their free-time to film with us, and if they only have a tiny part, it would be a ginormous waste of their time if we stood there not exactly knowing what to do, and giving them some kind of incomprehensible directions. Also, the storyboard will match with the script that the actors will be given beforehand, so if either one of them doesn't match up with the other, it could be a giant hassle. I don't want that to happen, so the storyboard and the script should be very clear from the very beginning.