Preliminary Review

Preliminary Report:

The preliminary task that we were required to carry out was a continuity task, done in preparation for our main task, in which we had to film a short sequence of around 1-2 minutes. In this scene we had to include filming of dialogue between two people (to be done in an over the shoulder shot), a chair and an action match shot of a character entering a door and walking across a room.

At first my group of 3 had the initial idea to create an eery and creative sequence, whilst successfully including all of the film's requirements. We initially wanted to film in an old abandoned hotel or house, but, as we got further into the idea we realised that this would include a lot constraints. These constraints were that we had a lot of time constrictions, as the filming and editing had to be done within in only 2 days, as well as the problem of there not being a door for a character to open, we recognised that we were bound to encounter many lighting difficulties and had no natural lighting equiptment available to us. Furthermore it would be very difficult for us to access the premises for filming in that amount of time without breaking several laws. So, as our idea developed we identified these limitations and thus we decided to turn to the theme of an unsuspecting character and including a lot of tension in our scene, which I believe we showed very well, whilst scrapping the idea for a thrilling location. This meant that we had to reconsider our plot and script for the scene which may have took more time than necessary as we had to rethink ideas.

For our film we chose a member of our group, Dottie Holland, and an outside member of the group, Jeanne MacCourt. We decided to use these two people to act within our group as they both passed GCSE drama and have gone on to continue it at AS level. This gave us confidence that they would give a thorough and convincing performance and we knew they would be capable of adapting to the roles and our requirements exceptionally. As well as them being reliable actors, they were also on hand at any point that we needed them, which was perfect due to the time constraints that were set. We also chose to use these actors as they were not  in need of any type of payment or booking which was ideal.

We chose to film in Lucy's house, another member of our group, as we realised that for this type of scene her house would be the best area to film in as it included everything we needed to fulfill the task, as well as ensuring we were able to get the best shots and camera angles possible to include a lot of creativity. We initially played with various ideas of where we would film, the first being the abandoned hotel. Then we planned the idea of filming in Dottie's house, but, we encountered a lot of problems. We weren't certain we were all able to get to the location and have enough time to film all the scenes we needed by the deadline. Eventually we settled on filming everything at Lucy's house as we discovered that everything we needed to carry out would be possible there. As well as this, the setting of the house was very classic of a home that would be seen during reality TV programs and would easily convey the aspect of normality and high level verisimilitude we wished to showcase in our scene. The main difficulty we had with the filming location was that it was situated on a main road which meant that during filming we had to delay some shots, or occasionally refilm them, as a car or bus would drive past that would distract from the scene. You could argue that this would've added high levels of verisimilitude and reality, however, it would not have given the film the professional look we desired.

Our storyboard helped a great deal in the planning and filming process. It assisted us in focusing on the camera angles and movements that would ensure our storyline was put across in the way we wished it to. It aided us in ensuring our audience gained our preferred reading. This is, according to Stuart Hall, when the audience have the exact understanding of a film that the producer/s intended. As well as this the storyboard allowed us to finalise our idea for the scene which gave us confidence whilst filming. It also allowed us to stay on task during filming and make certain that we would include all of the scenes and shots we wished to. However, we also left a few of the shots using different angles and movements to initiative and sudden inspiration whilst filming. By using both methods of the strictly planned filming process and the unanticipated filming it allowed us to gain the best shots for our scene.

Our script was very general and simple as we didn't use much elaborate dialogue in the scene, however what was scripted worked very well and we stuck to it during the filming process. Like the storyboard, the script helped us finalise our scene. On the other hand I do believe we could've made our scene more complex  by adding more dialogue to our script. However, the speech that we did have worked well to fit the atmosphere of the scene and accurately portray the character's emotions and personality.
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The first issue we encountered when filming is that we experienced a problem with the camera. This was that we couldn't work out how to charge it at first which unfortunately meant we only had 25 minutes of filming time. So, once we figured out how to charge it, the day after we encountered the problem, we came upon the issue that not everyone could get to the 'set' in the time limit before the deadline. Therefore it took us a while to figure out a time we could complete the filming before this time period. By the time we all had met at Lucy's house to film the daylight had completely changed from the first set of shots. Consequentially, we had to refilm everything that we had shot previously. As well as this, whilst filming we encountered a lot of complications to filming such as: parents in the kitchen making noise near where we were filming, the cat moving in and out of shot at odd moments and siblings playing loud music when we needed 'silence on set'. Furthermore, during the last few minutes of filming we realised we had not included one part of the brief, the chair, and the scene was taking place in a bathroom so a chair could not just appear as this would make the scene have low levels of verisimilitude and continuity. So, we decided to improvise and make our character sit on the side of the bath which acted as the 'chair'. Nonetheless, we did eventually manage to film everything we planned and needed for the scene to fit the specification.
We continued to encounter problems whilst editing when we realised that Dottie's humming was not continuous throughout the shots and sounded very unprofessional, odd and fractured the diegetic sound. It was now too late to refilm or rerecord her humming and change the audio track in the scene so her humming was kept in the scene. In attempt to tackle this, we tried to change the volume and levels of the audio track whilst editing. However, it caused too many problems with the sound that was required so we had no choice but to leave it as it was.

Our preliminary task successfully included all of the requirements. We used many action match shots to enhance the scene's atmosphere and appearance and it worked very well. We also showed a lot of creativity within the camera angles we used, such as the handheld low angle as the character walked up the stairs that we incorporated to create tension and suspicion. As well as this we added a PoV shot, an angle in which we saw the character's movements through a mirror and a pan shot of the character walking towards the house. These all worked very well to create the feeling of distrust that we wished to portray.
In the future, apart from hoping to get a higher quality camera, we are going to try and develop a more complex dialogue and use different zoom angles during the dialogue scene. During editing we would also like to experiment with using parallel non-diegetic in attempt to develop our editing and production skills, as well as seeing first hand how it extends and exaggerates the emotion of a film. I would also like to attempt a use of contrapuntal non-diegetic sound and experiment in making it fit to the film genre and plot.

We learnt that planning before filming is absolutely essential as it helps you develop your creative idea as well as ensuring you study the practicalities of your plans (such as access to actors, set, camera, etc). Secondly, we discovered that staying on task when filming is essential, especially when you have a strict deadline and a time constriction. Finally we realised that having a team you can trust to get the job done is essential, which luckily we had.