Media Preliminary Task

To get used to the cameras that we will be using to film our short film we did some preliminary filming in school. I tried out a variety of camera angles and shots that I have planned to use in my film, so that I could find out for myself how effective they were and which shots to use when doing the proper filming. Before doing the filming we had a lesson on how to film the most important things that I learnt were:

• Bring in arms close to body to keep the shot steady
• Get someone to hold your shoulders to prevent you from walking into anything
• Direct the actors well
• Film more footage than you need to
• Countdown from five when you are starting filming
• Tripods will keep your shots a lot steadier than by hand so use one whenever possible
• Continuity editing- one shot should flow on to another
• Use a wide variety of shots
• The 180 degree line

You can see my shots that I took edited together here, I edited it using Sony Vegas because I have used it in the past and so didn't have to spend any time learning the program. I got some feedback from my classmates and teacher so I could learn what I need to improve on for the next time I film, and also so that I could find out what I did well. The main positive feedback that I got was that the framing was good, there was a good variety of shots, and that the fade-in from darkness at the start made it look quite professional. The things to improve on were mostly about the shot where the character comes out of the door and walks up the stairs as the top of his head was cut out of the shot. Also I think that I could of cut this shot sooner as it is very important to keep the audience's attention and thirds shots just drags on for slightly too long.