New York Trip

New York..

For our AS Media Studies myself and a number of other pupils visited New York from 3rd February - 7th February. The main reason for the trip was the 4 hour Film Masterclass at the New York Film Academy. The 4 hour film masterclass included 3 stages; Film-making, Acting and Editing! And a great advantage to OUCH Productions was that all 4 members went to New York therefore participating in the Film Masterclass and ensuring that we did not have to inform a group member of what went on when we returned back to school; this made it so much easier for us. :)

The Editing was just a re-cap in more detail of what we had already learnt back at our school, but was very helpful. The extra little imformation passed on to us enabled us to add captions etc. to our videos without much of a struggle. This all became very useful when editing our preliminary video and planning our opening sequence.

The Film-Making whereas was the most helpful part due to the standard of equipment we used and the amount of it. Although the equipment standard was better than of that available to us back at school, we found it very helpful as we became use to using their equipment therefore making our equipment easier to use. Our standard of equipment might not be as good, but the techniques used in the film masterclass can easily be used in the making of our opening sequence using the equipment we have.

The Acting part of the masterclass was not as useful to us as the Editing and Film-making but the information passed on to us will be taken in and become useful when it comes to the acting part of both our preliminary and final task pieces. Due to all 2 of our group wanting to and willing to appear in our final piece, the opening sequence of a film, we deemed it necessary to listen carefully to everything being passed across about acting and remember it until we begin acting.

Preliminary Filming Task

After completing our January Media Exam; as a group we have been given the preliminary filming task of videoing someone walking into a room and exchanging dialogue with one or more people. In this preliminary piece we must contain a use of dialogue, match on action, 180 degree rule and a range of camera angles.

First off we had to decide on which of our class mates we would like to work with. After being advised to work with someone trustworthy and able to work hard in a group, I decided to work with Henry Dunn, Alex Baines and Gregg Sullivan, and believe this was a good decision. We are OUCH Productions! ;)

As a group we came up with the idea of Alex Baines (playing Douglas McKeowen) assaulting someone and being caught on CCTV. This clip is then followed by Alex walking down the corridor and into the police stations interview room. At this stage the 2 investigating police officers question Alex on the incident. Alex denies everything said saying 'you cannae prove this' and walks out.

The 180 degree rule..


The 180 degree rule is simply a basic guideline in film making that 2 characters in the same scene must always have the same left/right relationship to one another. If the camera crosses the imaginary axis connecting the 2 subjects the 180 degree rule is destroyed.

An an example of the 180 degree rule being used in our preliminary filming task is when Alex (Douglas McKeowen) is being interviewed. The camera in this scene never crosses the centre line from one side of the room, making it the 180 degree rule.

Match on action..
A match on action is when some action occuring before the cut is picked up where the cut left it by the shot immediately following it. For example in our piece when Alex is shouting at the police officers from ther door, the camera cuts from inside the room to outside in the corridor. We made sure this cut carried on his dialogue in flow and that he was in exactly the same position as before.











Range of Camera angles..

Close up: this camera shot diplays the most detail and is normally used to show a persons facial expressions or maybe some intricate activity within their hands. An example of the close - up camera shot in our piece would be when Alex (Douglas McKeowen) says; " I frickin hate pigs!" This shot shows Alex's anger and impatience whilst being interviewed by the two police officers.



Over the shoulder shot: This camera shot contains the back of one persons shoulder and the front of another persons face. In otherwords it is literally someone, in this case the camera, looking over someones shoulder at someone else or something else. This is normally used effectively when two people are holding a discussion or conversation. An example of this in our piece would once again be when Alex is being interviewed by the police officers and Henry is framing him for robbery, intention to kill and GBH.


High angle shots: This camera angle is high up looking down on the action, we used this quite regularly in our preliminary piece due to the use of the security cameras. the security cameras were always high up in the corner of the acting area looking downwards. Examples of this in our piece would be when the assault takes place in the dark at the beginning and also when Douglas McKeowen enters and leaves the interview room.











Panning: This is the horizontal movement of the video camera. Panning the camera results in a motion similar to that of someone shaking their head. The picture to the left briefly and simply shows the movement of the camera during the panning motion. In our preliminary piece we did not use panning, but we will be looking to use it in our film opening sequence due to its effectiveness and the skills involved.


Low-angle shots: This is a shot of when the camera is placed low and vertically near the floor looking slightly upwards. This can be used in filming when not wanting to see someones face when they are walking, so you just concentrate on the bottom half of their body. This camera shot is used in our Preliminary filming task when Alex is walking down the corridor towards the interview room.

Tracking: This is when the camera is mounted on something like a wheeled platform while being pushed on rails while the picture is being taken. The tracking shot includes a number of movements such as side to side, forward and back or even a curve. The shot is sometimes used to follow a person or object. We did not use this camera shot in our preliminary piece but once again will be looking at how we can use it in our final piece.

Continuity..

Continuity is ensuring that everything such as costume, props and location are exactly the same everytime you go to film a clip for the video. Continuity was vital throughout our preliminary piece due to the course of the filming taking place on more than one day. This meant that the people involved in the video clip had to wear the same clothes on both days of filming. Also all of the props used and seen in the first day of filming with have to be present on the second day of filming.

Storyboard for our Preliminary Video..

The image of our storyboard above clearly shows that during the making of our storyboard we concentrated on the types of camera angles we were going to use in our preliminary video, and also the dialogue that would be used by the actors.

Box 1 of the storyboard consists of the incident happening with the camera held up high looking down on the action like a security camera. The image in box 1 also shows that we had decided to edit the picture by adding the text 'security camera 01 18:00' to the bottom of the screen.

Box 2 whereas shows and tells us of the match on action going to be used when Alex is walking down the corridor. Box 3 once again shows the camera being held high up in the corner like a security camera and also again containing the editing text of 'security camera 02 09:48'.
Box 4 and 5 of the storyboard indicates the use of the over the shoulder camera shot. Box 4 is from one side of the table and box 5 from the otherside of the table. This is shown being used during the interview between the police officers and Douglas McKeowen.

Box 6 is a close up of Alex when he says 'cos i frickin hate pigs!'. This camera angle on the storyboard is going to be used to show the facial expressions of Alex's face during his interview with the police officers.

Box 7 is showing the first stage of the 2nd use of match on acion in our preliminary. In box 7 you can see Alex exiting the interview room of where he says 'you'll be hearing from my lawyer, I don't have one yet, but i will do!'. During the dialogue the camera changes to outside of the door, using match on action for the 2nd time.
Box 8 is the final box of the storyboard and shows the final part of our preliminary video when Alex has exited the interview room and signals foul hand gestures towards the 'security camera'. This is then followed by the 'Ouch Productions' written across the bottom of the screen.
Our final Preliminary Video..

OUCH Productions preliminary video can be found on youtube using the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWo31DnuUQ8 OR you can watch the video posted below, ENJOY :)

Evaluation of Preliminary Video..
I think our Preliminary Video was quite successful including a number of different camera angles. In our prelimnary video Henry is caught on camera laughing, we will have to make sure that in our opening sequence video we do not include anything like this as it will drop our mark and the overall effect of the video. In my opinion the best part of our preliminary video is the match on action used when Alex is exiting the interview room. This cut is edited perfectly. The dialogue is still heard fluently and in time and Alex's body position is exactly the same as before the camera cut.

Also the use of the close up on Alex's face and the repetition of his speech; 'cos I frickin hate pigs!' is really effective as the viewers can see Alex's facial expressions and establish instantly that he is very annoyed, and the repetition of his dialogue adds humour to his part of the video. Talking of humour, everything in our preliminary video said by Alex is humourous and heard in a Scottish accent, we decided to use this to see whether it would come across as a good thing to the viewers and after hearing many of them say it was great and funny, it became a success. The scottish accent also establish his characterisation instantly.

In our video I also think we came across and handled the 180 degree rule very successfully as when it was used in our video it was used correctly.

Overall I believe our preliminary video was very successful and only shows marginal successful videoing that OUCH Productions is capable of. The video used numerous camera angles and techniques and entertained the viewers with its humour, so hopefully our final video can be better and even more successful.