Our preliminary task was to create a short video that involved someone opening a door, walking through, closing the door and walking across the room to sit on a chair opposite another character, where they then exchange two lines of dialogue. We had to demonstrate match on action shot-reverse-shot and 180-degree rule within our short video as well as including a variety of camera angles. We believe that we stuck to these rules and by doing so, were able to add some drama and tension to our video.

After we had completed our storyboard, we had to choose our setting and our actors. We chose to use a classroom, however we chose one that did not have many bright colours and that was not brightly lit because we wanted it to look more like an interrogation room than a classroom. We felt it was important not to include lots of bright colours in the setting as we didn’t want them to give of the wrong connotations to the audience. To start our short video, we used a high angle shot as we wanted to replicate what the setting would look like through a CCTV camera. I think this was highly effective as it gave the effect of an interrogation room and distracted you from the fact that it was actually a classroom.

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For our actors, we chose to ask Dylan to be the detective as we felt that he could portray the role of a straight-talking detective very well and we also thought that his experience in drama would make him seem more confident. For his costume he wore a black suit jacket and a white shirt as we wanted him to look important and professional. For our criminal, we chose our group member Ryan as we though he would be best suited to play the role of a sly yet suspicious character. His costume was entirely black as it connotes danger, mystery and uncertainty which was how we wanted his character to be portrayed. His costume was more casual clothes to make the detective appear to have more authority.  Bernadette played the role of the guard who takes the criminal (Ryan) into the room. We chose Bernadette for this role because her experience in drama also made her very at ease with this role. Her costume was black, white and grey as we wanted to keep the colours very neutral. She was also dressed in business dress to make her look more important than the criminal. My role was to operate the camera and ensure that all of the shots were positioned in the way that we had planned on our storyboard.

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We were successfully able to film our match on action which involved the detective (Dylan) opening and closing the door. We believe that by starting this off with a close-up shot of the door handle, we added lots of mystery and tension to our video as it was very unclear as to who was on the other side of the door. We also successfully completed or shot-reverse-shot when the criminal and the detective were talking. These were mid-shots and were about three seconds in length each. These quick cuts were able to create tension and make the conversation more exciting for the viewer.  All of our action took place on the same side of the room. This prevents the viewer from getting disorientated and also means that we stuck to the 180 degree rule.

During the editing process we were all able to have input into the process. We set ourselves different roles so that we could be certain that everything would be done to the best of our ability. Ryan was in charge of making sure that the different clips all flowed together and that they were in the correct order, I was in charge of the audio and making sure that everything could be heard. Bernadette was in charge of special effects and the lighting in the video. This task gave us the opportunity to experiment with the editing programme and discover what we could do to manipulate our footage. Altogether, I think that we worked well as a team in the editing process and when all of our separate parts came together, we were very pleased with the results.

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The strong points of our preliminary task are that we were very well organised. We made it very clear what day we would be filming so that we could be certain that we had everything we needed for filming such as costumes and props. We also all worked very well as a team to complete our work to as higher standard as we could. I found it particularly useful when we allocated specific roles to each group member as it meant we could pay more attention to the separate components. During filming, we were able to manage our time effectively, making the best use of the time that we had and maximising filming time. All of our camera shots were in focus and in the position we had originally planned which made it much easier for us when we came to editing as it made it easier for us to follow.

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If we were going to film this video again, we would be more consistent with lighting. We chose to use natural lighting however this was not a good idea as the lighting changes slightly between shots which made them look slightly different from each other. We also noticed during editing that some of our camera shots a slightly wobbly therefore next time we will ensure that the tripod is steady and balanced before we start filming. Another thing we noticed in editing is that the audio, although clear, is not particularly loud. We adjusted the audio as much as we could in editing but next time we would make sure that it was louder during filming.  

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In summary, I think we all worked very well as a team and were able to make a video as described in the brief. I think this was a very valid experience for our group as it allowed us to experiment with filming and editing which will help us when we make our final product. Although there were some down sides to our video, I think they are very useful as it will allow us to improve our skills ready to create our film opening.