The preliminary task is to use continuity editing to film someone opening a door, walking into the room, sitting down infront of someone else and exchanging a couple of lines of dialogue. So far my group and I have constructed a storyboard of what we think will be a good short film including sound, lighting and transitions between shots. We then went around the school to test locations for our shots as well as how we were going to go about filming it, and took still images so that we could get a better feel as to what our storyboard would turn into when we film it. After taking the still images we put them into final cut and edited them together in order. We also added the sound effects so that we are ready to edit them in with the footage we will take. Problems we have encountered so far:
Being able to film using tracking shots. With the equipment provided at school smooth tracking shots are difficult to do and therefor we have to stick to stationary camera clips unless we can find a solution to the problem.
Filming a dark scene. Without proper lighting equipment filming people in a room that is supposed to be dark will make the quality of the film low.
Filming extreme high angle shots. Some shots that need an extreme high angle of a person are hard to keep steady without a high enough tripod to put the camera on.
I created this video with a group of two other people as a learning curve on how to use final cut so that I am prepared for my coursework task. What I learnt:
That a group of three people is enough to take the footage but you have to be prepared to involve other people to be in the film. These extra people also have to be commited to taking part in your film so they don't drop out half way through.
Always take more footage than you need! If you just take the amount you think you are going to put into your film, you may find that the clip isn't as good as you thought and you then have to go and shoot the clip again. In some clips in may just be a case of re-filming but if the original clip was taken in certain conditions, such as weather, you may not get the same clip again.
Planning is very important when making a film. Because this video was just a taster I didn't have time to plan out where everything was going to be filmed and which shots worked in the video. This stage is needed to make a professional film and I will be planning every stage of my coursework piece. A schedule would be a good way of planning when,where and who is going to be in each clip, and a back-up plan would be helpful incase weather or other factors get in the way of shooting a certain clip.
Equipment available to you must be considered at the beginning of the planning stage. Some shots may not work with the equipment provided, such as pan shots with an unsteady tripod. Do tests before filming to check which shots are possible to do.
Leave clip handles either end of the clip of about 5 seconds so that there is enough footage for transitions to overlap.
Lighting and sound must be considered when filming a shot. Test that there is enough light in the shot so that the camera can see the important people and objects in that shot, if the lighting is too low then it wont be very good quality. Sound should also be tested. Make sure the room is silent of all background noise if someone is talking in the clip, if the shot is outside take into account the amount of wind, traffic noise etc.
Overall the experience was good because I now know the basics of how final cut works as well as how I should go about filming. I will be thinking about all these points when making my final piece of film.
