Our second film practice

The preliminary film


Our task was to create a video clip on two people having a short conversation sitting down. We had to include at least one match cut in our clip. The group was me, Krisztina, Hamsa and Qiu-Ling. As a group we decided that Krisztina and Hamsa were going to be acting in the clip however; all of us were still going to participate in camerawork and editing as well as sound.

To begin with, we planned to make our clip appear interesting and mysterious by recording krisztina from different angle shots such as close-up and long shots. However; we will not be showing her entire face. This creates a sense of tension and suspense towards who she is and what the short clip is roughly about.

I think that our second practice film went particularly well. This is because, we were a little bit more organised and experienced in how to use the camera better than the first practice. We also remembered the 180 degrees rule that we have been taught. As well as this we learnt a new skill in match cutting and were excited to try it. Our film didn’t go as well as we wanted to as our editing skills were not really good. This is possibly because we haven’t had much practice on editing as we spent most of our time recording different shots for our clip. On the other hand, our second practice film went fairly well compared to our first one.

Between my first and second practice films I have learnt a few things. For instance, I learnt about match cutting and how important it is to use it in a clip. It shows a character for different point of views such as a character walking into a room from a long shot and then a character walking into the room from a side view. It allows the audience to view the character doing the same action in a different view. I have also learnt that our group needs more practice on editing as we appear to be a little bit weak when it comes to editing our video clip.

I feel that we tried to follow the forms and conventions of real films. For instance we did over the shoulder shot of Hamsa on the computer, exposing a bit of the computer screen. This is shown in many films as the camera comes closer to a person in an isolated room to build tension. This shot is imitated by our group as we used the camera to get closer and closer to Hamsa as if the camera is Krisztina walking into the room. The lighting we used was natural which followed the forms and conventions of some real films as they use white, lighting in order to show that everything doesn’t appear out of the ordinary however; they may use music and sound in order to suggest a sense that the movie is a thriller. We used a low angle shot from Krisztina’s feet and the camera moves up almost reveals her face but it doesn’t which plays with the audience. It makes them feel as if they are about to see her face but they don’t. This is used in many films in order to build suspicion. The Mise en scene we used were table, chairs and a computer screen. This is used in real films as an important scene could be set in a normal ordinary room.
The practice film allowed me to make comments on representation as it outlines a significant the conversation between two people in the scene.