Our brief was to film someone walking through a door, sitting down opposite someone else and exchanging a few lines of conversation. I found this task a fun yet challenging experience. I also found it extremely useful to learn how all the equipment works, for example: video camera, tripod, final cut express, how to import clips into i-Movie, convert i-Movie into final cut express, use the final cut express razor tool and to edit clips into the timeline and finally, how to export my final film to my blog.
When planning my preliminary task I decided to draw out a storyboard and write out my shot list. This was very useful, as I then knew what I was doing and the shots which I would be using. I made a few small changes to my shot list whilst filming because I decided that doing certain things wouldn’t have looked very good, visually. For example I was going to zoom in on the teachers shocked face but this proved very difficult to make it look effective.
When I looked at my film clip in more detail, and had a professional camera man watch it, I discovered that I could have improved my filming by:
· making sure that I moved the camera with the person walking and not just keeping it in one fixed position.
· making sure I didn’t leave too much of a gap between the two people talking when filming shot-reverse-shot as in the clip, you can see quite a lot of the background between them and so there is no unwanted space.
· tilting the camera down when the person sat down as it looks a bit odd in the clip
· making sure I don’t leave too much headroom above the people talking whilst they’re seated or standing up.
· making sure their eye lines match up to the camera and I’m eye-level with the people sitting down opposite each other whilst filming shot-reverse-shot.
· making sure the actors are the same size in the frame (unless I’m wanting a dramatic change.)
Overall I’m fairly pleased with my filming, as it was my first ever attempt at it, although next time I shall take into account the points I have made above. Next time, I shall also write out a script for the actors to have in front of them as we wasted quite a lot of time trying to remember what had been said in the previous shot. However, after physically being in front of the camera, I now feel much more confident with a camera after completing the preliminary task as I have learnt not only about the camera angles but how to use the editing software too.
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