Key Shot Types - Continuity

Continuity editing in filming is extremely important. Not only does it reflect on the professionalism and thought process of the film itself, but it allows the audience to easily grasp the narrative, mise en scene and character intentions without feeling disorientated or confused. There are three main techniques that are used throughout and religiously in filming:

MATCH ON ACTION
The match on action technique consists of two shots which simple give the illusion of a continuous single shot. It is very clever and commonly used widely across television and films. One shot cuts into another shot finishing the action of the first shot. The viewer is so used to this, that they often don't even realise that it has happened. 

SHOT REVERSE SHOT
This is used most frequently during a conversation between two people. The camera switches from behind one person shoulder (an over the shoulder shot), to the opposite person's shoulder. Emotion can often be captured through this technique as the person listening to the dialogue has their facial expressions on show.

THE 180 DEGREE RULE
This is an important rule all camera operators should follow. It consists of an imaginary horizontal line of which the camera should abide by. Particularly during Shot Reverse Shot/Over the shoulder shots, the camera must stay on the correct side of the line (correct shoulder) to prevent the audience getting confused of the mise en scene and character's viewpoint. 

Preliminary Task: "Is It Done?"

IS IT DONE?

This is our original storyboard which we used to base our preliminary task titled "Is It Done" on. To view, click the arrow pointing to the right to switch between slides and if desired, view in full screen. 

As you will see we made a few changes as we filmed. One significant change was from the knife to a gun. We decided to use a gun instead for health and safety reasons as we were filming in a school area. Secondly, the gun was readily available from our drama props department and resulted in the short film looking effective as it got the horror theme and point across well.

Here are some images of us during the process of filming. To view, click the arrow pointing to the right to switch between slides and if desired, view in full screen. 

This is our final video for our preliminary task. 

We were really pleased with the outcome of our preliminary task. We successfully showed a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character. The two characters then exchanged dialogue and the character then left the room. Along with these specifications we also had to include a match on action shot, shot reverse shot and follow the 180-degree rule. Using these shot types and the brief we had to follow, helped us understand how to plan, direct, construct and edit a film and I believe it will really help us to improve and master filming techniques in our final film. Although we accidentally broke the 180-degree rule, we corrected this through post-editing by flipping the shot. This ensured the continuity of the sequence was smooth and the audience didn't get confused.

We then decided we wanted to have a discussion on what we thought went well in our preliminary shoot and what went wrong of which we could improve on. Below is a short evaluation of our group discussing the preliminary task and what things we want to adjust for our final film. Having an open discussion like this enabled us to share our thoughts and ideas amongst the group and come to conclusions on future improvements.

Preliminary Task PLAN