Continuity Editing Exercise

The Scenario

For this exercise we had to construct a scene where a character enters a room and sits opposite another character and there a few lines of dialogue. We were given the freedom to pick our own scenario for example who the characters are and what the dialogue is that they exchange with each other. This allowed us to be more creative with the project.

Rule Of Thirds

Rule of thirds is a guideline followed in photography and film where the image is divided up into 9 boxes.When animals or  people are in the frame their  eyes should always be centred on the top line as the viewers eye line will naturally locate there. The reason why it is advise the eyes should be on this line is because the eyes are a point of interest in the shot.

The 180 Degree Rule

The 180 degree rule is a rule in film for when 2 characters are having a conversation to imagine a straight line going between them, the camera should never cross this line and only stay on one side of that line. An 180 degree arc is created which shows where it is acceptable for the camera to be placed. If for some reason the 180 degree rule was broken the audience would be confused as the characters appear to have switched position from left to right suddenly. In the screen-grab we can see here that in the scene the camera never moves past the 180 degree line.

Match on Action

Match on action is an editing technique used to show that one shot follows directly on from the previous shot, it allows the scene to continue to flow without any interruption or stutter. There are many examples of this. It is easiest to see when in a scene we watch a character open a door and walk through. In the first shot we would see a character only open a door only part way and in the next shot you would see them carry on opening the door with the door as far open as it was in the previous shot.

Shot-Reverse-Shot

Shot reverse shot is a film technique normally used to show exchange in dialogue between 2 characters. Where one character is shown looking at another character and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character.

In this piece of coursework to obtain full marks we have to make sure our film includes one sequence of match on action, follow the 180 degree rule throughout, show one instance of shot reverse shot and successfully  use rule of third continuously.

I planned my piece of coursework with Charlie and Nikhil who were my group members and we created a storyboard of our idea which helped us plan out  what each shot would look like it allowed us to decide what the shot type, camera angle, sound and editing. Through the course of the production Nikhil dropped media and we lost him as a group member this made filming harder for us as me and Charlie were both acting in the film so we had no one else to manage the camera.

For our idea we took the basic structure of a character entering a room sitting across from another and exchanging a few lines of dialogue and took it further. We made it so that the character which enters the room is holding the other character hostage and is trying to find where 'it' is. I feel this makes the film more exciting. The setting of the scene is in just a bare empty room with a table and 2 chairs, this allows to the audience to focus on the characters and causes no distractions

Planning For The Edit Workshop

 Year 12 A/S-Preliminary Exercise

The Encounter

For this piece of coursework we have been been given a short brief entitled 'The Encounter'. In this brief we have been given the instructions to ;storyboard, stage, film and edit a sequence where a character open a door, crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple lines of dialogue. The brief asks us to demonstrate our knowledge and understanding of match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

My groups idea was for the one of the characters to be held hostage by the other because he has something of his and he is interrogating him to find out where it is. We do not reveal what the seconds character is looking for because we feel it adds more suspense to the sequence. Our sequence is very morbid and we haven't added any humour as we feel if done incorrectly this could make our sequence's final cut look unprofessional. As we are in a group of three we split our sequence into three and each of us were in charge of one third of the project. I was delegated to take charge of the first third of the sequence and create a storyboard for it. In my storyboard we can see use of match on action when he opens the door and enters the room and a range of shot and angles.

Charlie was in charge of the second part of the storyboard here we can see him use a range of shots and angles. In his part of the sequence this is where the second character becomes frustrated with the hostage and begins to threaten him.

For the final part, Nikhil created the storyboard, this was his first time ever creating a storyboard but he did just a good a job as anyone else in this part of the story we see the antagonist start to use any means necessary to get the information he wants.