Prelim

   

The Prelim task was about filming a short scene using a storyboard as a guide to the shots. To make the process faster each member of our group was given a different role; two were actors, one was the director and one was the cameraman and the future editor. Together we discussed the positions of the actors and the order in which we will film the shots. Then we rehearsed the scene by running it twice without a camera.

On the set we used the rules and principles learned earlier.We didn't cross the line of interest established between the characters so they would maintain the same left/right relationship to one another.The call outs were "Stand by", "Rolling", "Action" and "Cut". We thought of positioning the camera at high angles when the character was vulnerable and at low angles when another one was dominating. Tape and small objects served us for marking the actors' positioning. We were starting to film before the action began and cutting some time after it ended to get extra footage for the editing. Watching the material was avoided to save time.

The immediate problem was in disagreement on the camera angles between the director and the cameraman.It was solved through quick discussions; after each one supported his point of view by explaining the effect achieved on the audience with his choice of angles, agreements were reached. The second one was the actors'struggle with dialogue, they could not memorise their lines in such a short time. So we filmed the scene with scripts in their hands or on the table to make them less noticeable. It improved a lot the fluency of the performance. The last difficulty was in arranging the sequence of the camera movement to film the shots from different perspectives most efficiently, but after some time spent thinking and marking each picture on the storyboard we worked it out.

If more time was available we could have taken more attempts for each shot, since some of them were spoiled by the minor mistakes. That would widen our choice of footage for editing. We could also record the dialogues and foley after shooting to enhance the sound.

Prelim taught me the importance of pre-production. The required steps are distributing scripts to the actors beforehand, choosing the right location and preparing it for filming, plan the shots carefully by writing a detailed screenplay.