Q7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? BY CHRISTOPHER OSBYRNE

Preliminary Exercise vs. Film Opening

For our preliminary task, our group had to complete a continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task had to demonstrate a match on action, shot/reverse shot and a 180-degree rule. In our film opening sequence, we used all three of these techniques during the meeting sequence between our films boss character and our heist crew members. As we did in our preliminary exercise, our group got a shot of our protagonists opening the door and entering the room, making sure to maintain continuity with a match on action on the opening of the door when cutting from outside the room to the inside.

What did I learn from completing the preliminary exercise?

We also utilised shot/reverse shots to convey that our characters are physically interacting with each other and made sure to conform to the 180-degree rule so that our audience can understand how the staging and ensemble of our characters are set on-screen. From doing this, I learned the importance of each of these techniques and how they are essential in conveying a films story and themes. Without each of these rules used, our film would not have had the same impact as it does now and they would lose continuity and the scene would not have made any sense.

Examples of similarities

Match on Action of the door opening.

Examples of similarities

Shot/Reverse Shot between over-shoulder shots of characters.

Examples of similarities

180-degree rule used.