Continuity Task 2 Evaluation

What was your role in the task and what did you actually do?: I was a main actor in my piece. I was also a script writer and producer alongside the rest of my group, as we all helped in writing the script, moving and dressing sets and getting props. The role of director was also split across the group with us all deciding collectively on how the shot should look and how the actors should deliver the lines. I also did half of the editing of my video alongside Ayo.

What factors did you have to take into account when planning, filming and editing?: The time it would take to film was a very important part of the planning phase, as we were given a fairly tight schedule in which we had to finish our filming. We wanted to make sure that each shot flowed into one another as this was primarily a continuity task and so that was at the heart of our planning, filming and editing. We also made sure to plan the task in such a way that the editing process would be fairly straightforward, so that no special effects or other advanced editing techniques would need to be done as this was not in our brief.

How successful was your sequence? Did you manage to demonstrate match-on action, shot-reverse shot and 180-degree rule? did you achieve continuity overall?: I would say we were successful in creating our sequence. We had many shot-reverse shots throughout the dialogue, the 180 rule was not broken at any point and we had a number of well timed match on action transitions. I would say we generally achieved continuity however there were a couple inconsistencies across shots. For example there was a dramatic shift in lighting across a few shots which happened despite us not adjusting the lighting. This was perhaps due to the lighting system itself or perhaps simply the angle at which we were filming. There was also an inconsistency in which my arms moved far too much across 2 shots. This was because we didn't plan and remember the exact positions of the actors when filming multiple shots of the same scene, resulting in this issue.

What have you learnt from completing this task? How might this impact future video work?: We have learnt the importance of making sure actors keep completely still across 2 shots, this will allow us to keep continuity across shots in future projects. I have also learnt that footage should be watched back and compared during the filming phase, this would have helped us pick up on lighting differences. The importance of a shot list has also been made clear to me through this project as previously shot lists have been mandatory and I never really appreciated how useful they really are. Had we made one our filming time would have been much more organised. We will also remember to use the clapperboard in all shots as in this task we only remembered to use it halfway through the filming process.