Arron short film evaluation

Short Conversation Evaluation

Brief:

The brief was to create a short film of a conversation between two people showing the 180-degree line of action rule; shot reverse shot and match on action.

The 180-degree line rule is when you don’t cross a certain line when filming. If a shot after the original shot in a sequence is located on the opposite side of the 180-degree line, then it is called a "reverse cut."

The shot reverse shot is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character, and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. This gives the effect that both characters are looking at each other.

A match on action is when you film an action in one shot but this action ends within another shot for example in shot one I would throw a piece of paper towards a bin but in the second shot it films the paper going in giving the effect of throwing it into the bin perfectly.

Planning:

Firstly, we planned this by creating a script using software called Celtx, which was a conversation between two people. After this we then created a storyboard, which was the foundation of the short film, which gave us a brief idea of how we would film it. The storyboard contained the type of shot and a brief drawing for an example. We then did research on the location of where we were going to film and we decided on filming in a music studio. The shots we were going to use were ‘over the shoulder’ ‘two shot’ ‘mid-shot’ ‘medium long shot’ ‘long shot’ and ‘close up’. We did a quick risk assessment before filming making sure there were no wires or to make sure it was a safe place to place a camera so that we were ready to film.

How It Was Filmed:

We filmed the conversation following our storyboard by placing the camera in the corner of the corridor using a medium long shot to film the first person walking towards the door. After this we placed the camera opposite the door to film a close up of the person opening the door. There were a few difficulties when filming the close up for the door wouldn’t open on one take of this shot. After this, we filmed a medium long shot of a person walking into the room but then we realised we broke the 180 degree line rule so we had to film it again from the right shoulder of the second person. As well as this we then filmed a few different shots of each person speaking the full conversation over the shoulder and two shot. From these we would be able to edit the conversation using the bits we want.

Editing

We edited the short film using final cut express. We got the clips that we filmed and pasted them onto final cut express. Then we selected the main clips we were going to use and cut/edited them to the right length so that it would run smoothly. Also, we added a fade in and fade out to the clip to make the end more fluent and not just a quick stop. As well as this we re-framed one shot which was slanted so all the shot were aligned and on the same level.

How the film demonstrates 180-degree line/shot reverse shot/ match on action

The film demonstrates these because all shots don’t cross the line extra. We do this by filming the over the shoulder shot over person A’s left shoulder and person B’s right shoulder. Also, the medium long shot is filmed over person B’s right shoulder keeping the 180-degree line rule. It shows the shot reverse shot in the conversation alternating from person A to person B.