Our task was to film a character walking through a door, sit opposite another character and exchange two lines of conversation. We chose to do a police drama, with a police officer and a criminal.  We had to include a shot-reverse- shot, match on action and 180 degree rule.

Shot reverse shot is when you switch between to angles. This is usually within conversation, and to show a non-verbal reaction to what has been said. This angle was used for us with the conversation between the robber and the police officer, and the robbers reaction to being told they were nicked. 

     Match on action is where you film something from 2 angles, and then put them together to make them seem continuous. Our match on action was used when the police officer walked through the door. This was to make the action smooth. 

    180 degree rule is used so the subject's don't swap places in the scene. This looks like a continuity error, when actually it isn't. To combat this, we only filmed on one side of the desk as you can see here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                          We only filmed from this side of the desk, and at the

                                         points of view of the characters, for the 180 degree rule.

 

 

  To make sure there were no continuity errors in the mise en scene, we set the scene up before filming and didn't move it whilst filming. As you can see, key items such as the lamp stay still throughout the film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      We used a tripod for most of the camera work in our ' interrogation room'. This was so the shot looked steady. To get the shot reverse shot to be in the same place,  we filmed the robbers speech and reaction at the same time, then did the police officers line. This is so we could get the camera in the same place for each shot. Whilst filming the shoes at the beginning we stabilised the camera on the floor and zoomed out whilst filming. To improve this shot we could have tracked her feet, as that could have resulted in a smoother shot. However, the floor was concrete so made a noise when you rolled wheels along it, and we couldn't find anything low enough that would move so we could track her sufficiently. In the end we stuck with zooming out because it was the most successful shot.

 

         In this piece, we edited the cuts. For a start we ordered our cuts to match our story board. We then cut out all the unnecessary pauses at the start and ends of the clips, because whilst filming we gave ourselves a few seconds each side of the line to make sure that the camera had started filming and that the actors had time to create atmosphere before there line, like any facial expressions before or after their line, as shown below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                   This shot of the police officer  was caught after her line. We

                                 deliberately filmed on after the line for the facial expressions,

                                  which are an important in non- verbal communication (N V C).

                             You can clearly see she is pleased about catching a criminal, without

                                her having to say it , which is something we wanted to achieve.

 

 

 

 

          Once we had put the clips together in a way to make them seem continuous, we added the text for our titles, and the ' to be continued' shot at the end. We wanted the put the titles at the start rather than the end because we didn't want the 'to be continued' to lose the dramatic impact. We used the particular font because of the stereotype police drama titles. The white writing is sensible and simple, showing that the police force is not elaborate or fancy, and that it is practical, like the police officers have to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

         We put the directing, editing and cast credits over the footsteps and before the title to try and create an interesting and mysterious feel. This is because you don't know what it's called or what is going on until the police officer walks through the door and you can see that she's part of the police. This engages the audience because they are curious to know what is going on.

     We faded between cuts 4 and 5. This was to symbolise an end of the title sequence. originally, we planned to play some music over cuts 1 to 4, to further show it was the titles, and at the end ' to be continued' cut, to show the end. However, we couldn't find any music that was royalty free and appropriate in the time available. We also planned to Pan left and follow the police officer siting down. We couldn't because our location was a class room, and there was lots of items, such as a filing cabinet and an interactive white board that were not right for our desired setting, and so would have classed as a Mise-en-Scene continuity error.

 

    In editing, we found that we didn't have our second cut (story board box 2). We believe it hadn't recorded, or the computer didn't pick it up as a film file whilst we were transferring the film from the cameras to the computer. To combat this, we went straight from the front shot of the shoes to the back shot of the shoes. In this shot, we were going to have our 'starring ' credits. However we had to move them to the back shot of the police man instead. Overall, this hasn't really impacted our final edit.

 

     I believe that the first and second shots where successful in creating the desired mysterious feel. However, In the second cut there is the sound of a vacuum cleaner in the back ground. Next time, I would film when there isn't cleaners working, so we don't get unwanted sound.

 

     I think to improve, we could have cut the end of our shot, as there is a camera wobble. This is possibly because when we pushed the record/stop button, it moved the tripod a bit. We didn't notice this whilst editing. Next time, we will scrutinise the shots for anything like that.