Practicing planning, filming, editing and match cuts

During today’s lesson as a group we had to do a practice filming and edit it with the plan that we had done from the previous lesson. This plan consisted all the different types of camera shots that we were going to use and how many times we were going to use each shot for the practice filming. We allocated different things that each member had to do for the practice filming and editing. I had to do the acting, Shahida, Nazmin and Fahmida were doing the camerawork and at the end we all took part in the editing.

The brief of our practice filming was to film and edit a character entering college, and walking into a room where the character sits opposite another character and they share a conversation together. We had to use match cuts in order to put the sequence together.

I thought the camera shots that were taken at the beginning of the sequence came out best as we used the tripod in all shots. However, as I was the main actor in the sequence I often found it hard to walk at a very slow pace. Throughout the sequence in general I thought the camerawork came out quite good as we used the tripod; although at times like the shots that were taken in the lift it did not come out so good. This was because we did not use a tripod as it didn’t fit into the lift, and also Shahida found it quite hard to balance her arm and film at the same time. Also we were not able to tell that the filming shaked a lot at the time, but when we saw it on the computer we realised that we could tell her hand shaked a lot and it looked quite bad. This made us realise that using the tripod is essential and we should try our best to use it at all times when filming our thriller opening. We used different camera shots to show different things. We used low angle shots, over the shoulder shots to create suspense, extreme wide shot to show the mise en scene, close ups to show emotions, and also mid shots to show the characters.

As Shahida was mostly filming, at times she forgot to do the 5 seconds rule before she said ‘action’ and after she said ‘cut’. This made it hard for me to know when to stop as i was the character in the sequence. We learnt that this rule is important as it allows the actor to know what they are doing and it is also beneficial for later in the editing stage when we do the match cutting.

We used Apple Macs to edit our practice film. At first we all found it quite hard to use, although we did get some help in terms of how to edit our camerawork and also how to use match cuts to put the sequence together. By the time we got the hang of it and started editing the sequence, we didn’t have enough time to complete it; therefore we needed to come to workshop in order to complete the editing.

As we filmed in the college it was often hard to get an empty space as there were always people walking in and out of the camera. This made us realise for our thriller sequence we have to film at a time where no one will be present other then us in order for the mise en scene to come out good.

Overall I think practicing filming and editing was extremely beneficial to all members of the group as we learnt new things and we also learnt from the mistakes we made, and now know how to film and edit better. I also realised that planning is essential as it allows everyone to know what they are doing, and also it is unlikely to make mistakes if you plan really well.