"Filming and Editing the Preliminary Exercise"

The filming of our preliminary exercise ran smoothly; the actors/actresses arrived on time, the rooms were risk assessed and ready for use and the props were also available. The only problem we had on that front was a communication error which prevented us from getting in contact with a group member, resulting in her not taking part in the filming. We decided to continue with the filming as planned as we had everything we needed ready for use, including people who had given up their spare time to help us out.

Everyone in the group stuck to their roles; Ash Stewart was director and kept everything organised, exampling the shots and scenes to the actors/actresses and ensuring the film would be successful. I operated the camera, making sure the angles and lighting were correct for the shots and also the genre of the clip. If the lighting were too bright, it wouldn’t have fit as well as an atmosphere of suspense was what we were looking for.

The mistakes we made were avoidable, i.e Deanna not being present and also a technical error with the camera (our camera was set differently so the sections we filmed ran as one whole clip as oppose to the different sections cut apart from each other) but our tutor reassured us by reminding us that the preliminary exercise is more of a learning curve, which we can use as a basis for improvement on our main exercise.

We are also aware that the acting standard was not essential to the examiner, so greater attention was paid to the camera work. We stuck to our storyboard and script, which didn’t contain much dialogue, to make sure we would obtain the best marks possible.

Before filming I went onto Youtube and researched clips from hospital based programmes such as ‘Holby City’ and ‘Casualty’ and we found this clip: Research Link which shows a man entering a room, crossing it, sitting down and exchanging dialogue with another character. The clip links directly to our task; “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".

Although we stuck to our storyboard as closely as possible, there were a couple of instances when we felt the need to alter either the shot type or the actions made by the actors/actresses for a more realistic, continuous look. For example, we changed a Mid-shot to a Close up between shots 11 and 12 for a Pan between the two characters so that we could also see the ‘Mental patient’ in the background. This Pan also gave us a sense of authority as the Doctor asked the questions, making her more important, and the Man answered them, showing that he was lower down in status. The Mental patient in the background was at a lower eye level than the Doctor and the Man, again suggesting that he is lower down in status.

Linking to part A of the exam, we took all aspects into account, such as Mise-en-scene. In Tv Drama, props are important. So, we obtained lab coats and clip boards for the Doctor and the Man and a straight jacket for the Mental Patient to add some realism to the clip. We also added a ‘heartbeat monitor’ t the rooom where the Doctor was sat, by finding a clip on youtube that showed a heartbeat monitor and having running on a computer screen when we were filming.
The biggest flaw we came across when editing was the actual clip itself, which was meant to be cut into separate frames when we were filming so we could name the clips individually and link them closer to the storyboard. However, when we uploaded the film it was as one continuous clip so we had to copy and paste the whole clip over and over, and cut it up from there to find the right parts and link them up correctly so it was continuous. We will consider this in the main exercise and ensure that the camera is set to cut the separate frames up so we don’t have this problem again.

The music we used was non-copyrighted and we found it in the library. We sifted through the albums that we thought would most fit our piece and as a group decided on the track we used.