Preliminary Write-Up

About my preliminary task:
For our preliminary task, we had to make a short clip of someone opening a door, walking though it, crossing a room, sitting down, and having a conversation with someone.

Planning:
When planning, we made a floor plan, a story board, and wrote (or borrowed) a script. All of this helped with making the filming a lot smoother as we knew what to film and exactly what to say due to it all being presented on paper. When we finished drawing up our plans, we searched for a location to film in, to which we chose the English block as it had seating, doors and hallways which suited our style of what we wanted to include in out clip. We made sure not to cross the line or break the 180 degree rule by making sure to stay on one side of the character when walking at all times. And when sitting and talking, we also stayed on the same side of both characters, to ensure that we didn't make a mistake with the rule.
Each stage of planning was important as we needed to know clearly what to film as so we didn't break any rules, and so that we had continuity with the filming and acting. I do not think that any other planning was necessary due to having everything we needed, but being prepared by having back-up actors would be a goo idea, as when we filmed our clip, two people in our group didn't turn up and so we had to find someone last minute, which worked out well, but was not helpful as they didn't know the script or what to do at all and used a massive amount of guidance and frustration.

Techniques:
For our camera techniques, we used the 180 degree rule, extreme high shot, shot reverse shot, rule of thirds, lead room/nose room, and a variety of camera shots. For filming the conversation, we used influence of the Coen brothers as when we had characters talking, we didn't use over the shoulder shots, but used shot reverse shot with close ups of the speakers.
When editing, we used clean cuts, but used a dip from black for the beginning and a dip to black for the ending of our film. We only used a tiny bit of colour correction, as some clips were significantly darker than others, and we wanted them to match for continuity purposes. There was also one clip that for some reason looked very green when we tried to use it, and so used the colour correction to make it less green so that it matched the rest of the film.

Main learning points:
I learned many things during this preliminary task which will be useful for filming the thriller project later on this year. For example, the physical aspects I have learned, include the use of a camera, how to use the tripod to create different shots (high or low angles) and how to edit. For editing, I learned that you can use effects to make clips shorter and merge into the next clip better and more efficiently. I have also learned how to change the colour of clips so that they fit in better, or can look a certain way.
Group work for planning helped me to learn how to storyboard effectively and how to create a floor plan with camera directions clearly presented.
The technical aspects of film grammar taught me about the 180 degree rule and how to use it to your advantage. Watching clips from Peaky Blinders allowed me to understand the effective ways of filming someone walking, and clips from Coffee and Cigarettes allowed me to learn how to film a conversation effectively.

Mistakes:
When filming, we make a lot of mistakes such as not using the rule of thirds to out advantage when we could have, or having the tripod on a slight tilt by accident so that the shot wasn't straight like we wanted.

Thriller:
These aspects will help me when filming the thriller later on in the year, as I know now how to use things to my advantage, and know to check things such a lighting, or the tripod to make sure that it goes as smoothly as possible.

How to improve:

Use a more steady shot, more variety of camera shots as well as making the smoothness of the sound editing much more efficient.