Starting The Task!
For our Preliminary we were asked to film and edit a short piece which showed two people sitting at a table exchanging dialogue. We were told to get into groups of four at maximum and that our film must contain the 180 degree rule, a variety of different camera angles, and a reverse shot.
For our Preliminary we were asked to film and edit a short piece which showed two people sitting at a table exchanging dialogue. We were told to get into groups of four at maximum and that our film must contain the 180 degree rule, a variety of different camera angles, and a reverse shot.
Our group immediately starting thinking of concepts, ideas and different techniques which we could use in our film, we started to draw some mind maps, first of story lines, it didn't take us long to come up with some ideas, which included:
- A Job Interview
- A Doctor Consultation - patient being told their test results.
- A French Conversation - using English subtitles.
- A Teacher Pupil Conversation - pupil confessing something to a teacher
- An Interrogation - police officer trying to get a criminal to confess to a crime.
We then drew up a few small mind maps about camera angles, lighting, editing and costume to gain some ideas which could inspire us to decide on which idea to follow.
After allot of thinking about different concepts and styles we decided to proceed with the idea of a Interrogation. We wanted to create a short film about a Detective interrogating a criminal about a murder which the criminal had committed. We also remembered that we were inspired earlier on in the year as we watched a few crime thriller opening sequences in order to concentrate on camera angles and techniques, these included "Seven", "The Usual Suspects" and "Scarface", we also knew that these films contained great interrogation scenes which we could take techniques from in order to perfect our short film.
Characters & Costume
Deciding on who would play our Detective and criminal wasn't too hard, we had a few people in mind who we knew could act but soon settled on our good friends Samuel White and Ryan Hayes. Luckily they had an experience of acting from the "extremely successful" AMVC musical "The King and I", so we knew they would take the job seriously. Their costume was easy to organise as we just wanted the detective (Sam) in plain clothes, so we just wore his normal school attire; and you could only see the top half of the criminal (Ryan) so we decided to dress him in a grubby old "wife beater" vest to make him look even more creepy.
Here's a few pics of our stars and zac effron in a "wife beater" white vest, just for funzies (: >>>>
Filming & Location
After thinking of a concept we needed to find a location to film, so we decided to take a little walk around school, looking into every room which we thought we could film our "Interrogation". It didn't take us long to walk past the dusty old English office...stop...and ask Miss Lewis for the key. When she warned us of the state it was in we thought that it would be a perfect messy detective's office. I think the only reason why we were alowed to use it was because the English staff knew it needed a bit of clean and that we would do it for them. So after we moved box after box of books and paper, and set up a desk and chair for our creepy criminal to sit behind, we were able to film. Lighting caused a little bit of a problem as we originally wanted a desk lamp to only light the criminal's face, so i ran down the to science technitions and asked for a small desk lamp. The problem occured when we realized that the plugs in the office no longer work, what a disaster! So instead we used normal lighting from the ceiling light in the room, oh well.
Here's a picture of our location :) >>>>
Techniques We Used
As we were asked to include different movements and techniques in our piece, we obviously needed to think about the different ones we could use but still think back to our concept, and what techniques would be suitable and effective. The sort of techniques we used included the 180 degree rule, high and low camera angles, mid angles, long shots, an establishing shot, close ups, and a (little bit of a shaky) zoom.
Just in case your media knowledge is a little bit rusty, here are the definitions on some of the techniques we used:
High Angle Shot - This is simply positioning the camera high above the area you wish to shoot. This shows the character within the scene, down below which can show vulnerability. We decided to include this in our piece to give the effect of a CCTV camera as well as showing the criminal (Ryan) in a vulnerable state.
Low Angle Shot - This is a very simple shot, when the camera is placed on the floor or onto a surface which is below the characters, it often shows authority. We used a low angle shot in our piece when focusing the camera on the detective (Sam), this displayed his power and authority perfectly.
Long Shot - This shot simply shows the characters and their surroundings. We wanted to use it to establish the character's identity and status and display it to our audience, i.e. the detective's standing authority to the sitting criminal.
Mid Shot - Possibly the most common camera shot, this displays a clear angle of a character. We decided to display our protagonist (Ryan) with a mid shot to show his emotion and reactions to his interrogation.
Establishing Shot - This clearly displays the scene of the piece by showing the area or situation to the audience. We used an establishing shot in our piece by shooting a still shot of an old building outside our school. The still establishing shot strongly hinted to the audience that the interrogation was being held in the building being shown.
Close Up - This is basically when the camera shows a close shot of a character's face to display emotion and feeling. We used very few close ups in our piece, only zooming from a mid shot of the criminal (Ryan) to a close up of a photograph of his victim (me), this occurred at the end of our piece as we hoped it ended it in a mysterious and sinister manner.
180 Degree Rule - This is when the camera stays on only one side of the area being shot, as if there were an invisible line going straight through the set, which cannot be crossed. This helps the audience concentrate on dialogue between characters. If the camera passes through the invisible line connecting the two characters it is referred to as "crossing the line". This new shot which is developed from "crossing the line" is called a "reverse angle".
Editing and Evaluation
Editing our piece didn't take long at all, thanks to the school's Sony Vega 8 software we were able to edit our piece in about an hour. Lauren seemed to understand the software quite easily and enjoyed using it so she took it upon herself to do most of it whilst Sam, Perry and myself gave a helpful input of ideas and opinions on how we thought our film looked. It was quite easy to decide how we wanted each shot to blend together using the editing tools. We also decided to add end credits, and came up with a name for our film...
"The Interrogation!"
Even though we are very happy with our finished piece, we obviously still think that with more time to polish it could have been even better. We've had our problems and difficulties along the way, such as plugs not working, or somebody, no names mentioned *cough* Lauren *cough* accidentally deleting our finished video so we nearly lost it but thankfully Sam had it on his memory stick. But overall i think we have succeeding in making our first media film and i am very proud of the result.
So here it is, our finished Preliminary Task... THE INTERROGATION. Its on a YouTube link as we couldn't upload it onto our blogs for some unknown reason, but it is there and that's all that matters :). All you need to do is click on the link, watch and then possibly tell us what you think.
THANK - YOU.
