Continuity Preliminary Task (shot reverse shot, match shot, 180 degree rule)

We incorporated little editing with this task, however we tried to portray a variety of shot types, especially the key camera shots like match shots and shot reverse shots used popularly in cinematic production.

Firstly we included a match shot; for this i repeated the same action twice so i was filmed from two different angles giving a more interesting and revealing effect. Having a close up of my hand pushing the door and then a long shot from a frontal perspective is effective because the detail in a close up shows the action we should be focusing on (the door movement) and then the long shot establishes our protagonist (me). Having a long shot contrasting with the extreme close up creates a contrasting differentiating effect keeping the audience involved and hints or foreshadows we will not only see things from one perspective. I thought our match shot was effective because we created a cut that flowed directly onward and was smooth and didn't omit any information. The door fitted with the scene geography of the cuts so that it moved almost as if it was a continuous action. The weaknesses of our match action shot could possibly be that there was only one attempt of this, and the door idea of a match action shot was relatively cliche...we could have attempted a more unique match action shot with the addition of props for example putting something down or picking something up can look as if it is a continuous routine of events even with close ups of the objects as well as mid shots of the action.i also think using vehicle doors as a basis for match action shots is clever because the audience can feel like they too are in a car if you were to have a match action shot externally and then internal of the car.  Also to give our task a genre or theme we could have incorporated ideas of an action movie and the types of match shots action movies have- for example i could have jumped over an obstacle and this jump could be repeated so see it from a frontal angle and a side angle as i go over the obstacle.

we attempted to incorporate the 180 degree rule throughout by drawing our invisible line directly central of my character and didn't cross this line, or more effectively, cross the banister. because i was so close to the stair banister, we used this as a telling point for the axis of action and where not to exceed our shots. Effectively we kept to this rule throughout because we knew our audience could see it as clunky and disorientating if we didn't.

One of the main weaknesses of this task was the camera wobble we had at 0;08.This only slight camera wobble would ruin the 'magic' of the film from the audience, reinforcing that it is filmed and non realistic. it also showed lack of proper usage of the tripod which is intended to stabilize our camera. Also, there was a entire 1-2 second interval where i could not even be seen on screen, this is ineffective as there is no relevance to the bland seconds where the protagonist cannot even be seen and we should have omitted this from the cut or filmed from a different angle. effectively however, the scene geography fitted as there were two different types of shots, both of the banisters but from different angles and then this eased onto our next long shot and behind view of my character walking down the stairs. the close up shot of my hand at this point may be argued to be slightly un necessary however we wanted to incorporate the shock of the sudden stop of me walking- so the audience would be eager to know why i have stopped- leading onto a shot reverse shot where i am seen with an expression of recognition and then the shot rebounds off what i have recognized-which is Sophie- our secondary character, i am looked upon by a low angle shot so it is reinforced i am the protagonist, and when the shot reverses so we see eyeline match of what i am looking at- Sophie is filmed upon by a high level shot almost belittling her. We were careful to ensure our match action shots lined up so it was a direct eyeline match however more effectively we could have incorporated the rule of thirds in our task because often characters being predominantly central can be boring and unrealistic however having characters in the top and bottom corners or sides flaunts the background as well as the character and is more effective and commonly used.