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