Continuity Exercise

The aim of this activity was to practise shooting two people exchanging dialogue between one another. The main shot we had to focus on was the shot reverse shot. As many films uses this type of shot to help show communication between one another. As we were exchanging dialogue to each other, this would be a good shot to use, as it would also allow us to see how good our editing skills are. We also had to consider other shots we were going to use in order for our sequence to flow well. This activity was mainly set to help us gain certain techniques in editing and knowledge in what shot to use, for our final thriller opening we are going to create for our coursework. 

After editing our final sequence, we can see that is was quite successful as most of it flowed well take exceptions of the last shot. The camera moves very clean when it focuses on the 2 males while they are talking. Also the diegetic sound worked well when the camera moved from one male to another, allowing communication to flow well. The shot types used where mostly good, however when there was a long shot, you could see a group of people at the back therefore seen as unprofessional. I think the high angle shot was good as we were able to capture everything that was going on. Overall the shoot was efficient taking into consideration, that we had little time to produce it.

This activity taught me how to edit and further develop my skills in Final Cut Express. I also learnt what shots to be used according to the genre we are aiming our sequence for. Rather than shooting the basic close-ups and medium close-ups we could use alternative shots such as establishing and over the shoulder shots. Furthermore i also learnt that the character should remain in the same position that he was in for the subsequent shot as then editing will be much easier and will also allow the continuity to work well.

Compared to the accident i think our film in terms of continuity wasn’t as good. In the continuity exercise the position of the character wasn’t the same from the previous shot. This was a problem as then we couldn’t make the sequence flow at some stages and therefore lacking continuity. However i think we used better shots than in the accident. The shots were good as they illustrated, what was happening in the sequence.