Here is our Preliminary task, a short sequence showing someone opening a door and exchanging a line of dialouge with some body else. For this task we looked at media practices such as match on action and the 180 degree rule.
The 180 degree Rule is a rule that is used
commonly in media productions when two character are talking. It is used to prevent the audience from getting confused about which way the characters are facing and who is talking at what point. The rule is that when the characters are exchanging dialogue, an imaginary arc is drawn on one side of them, and that all shots of them speaking must be in this arc. This helps the present the conversation clearly and easily without confusing the audience.
We have seen this rule in action many time, in fact it is very hard to find a media production that does not conform to this rule, so instead of using it in our preliminary task we decided to explore the effects of dialouge between characters without using this rule. This can be seen in the two over the shoulder shots that are used in the toilet cubicle, each one is on a different side of his head. For us this did not make too much difference, but this is largley because of the contrast between the over the shoulder shot when toby is talking and the mid shot when sam is. The two different over the shoulder shots are also in close proximity, however if they were further away or the shots of each of the characters talking were more similar then it could get very confusing for the audience.
Match on action is a practice that works to make the media product look smoother and to make jump cuts less noticiable during action shots. It is basically when something happens in one shot, for example a someone putting on a coat, and then half way through this action the camera cuts to a different shot of the same person putting on the coat, the action must match. This means that if the first shot cuts at the point where the coat is half on then the start of the next shot cannot have the coat fully on or barely on, it must be at exactly the same point as before the cut when it starts.
In our preliminary task we used match on action to make the cut between the close up of tobys hand opening the toilet door and the over the shoulder shot from inside the cubicle. this helped us make the cut a lot less noticable and made the sequence look more realistic in general. This is something that we will use in our final media product to have the same effect and also to make it look more professional.
Our preliminary task contains elements that make it moderately effective at showing the two characters talking to each other, however there are a few things that we could improve on so that when we make our final production as effective as possible. For example for a start, we should use the 180 degree rule in order to make the exchange of dialogue between characters clearer. The shots in our preliminary task are also quite shaky due to the fact that all of the shots used were taken on an iphone camera and were handheld, in our final production we should use a tripod to steady the camera for the shots that we use, unless they are specified to be handheld. We will also use a a higher quality of camera. As well as this we should use better editing software that will give us far more editing options, our preliminary task was edited in windows movie maker, where as our final production will be edited in final cut pro. In our final production we will also film in better lighting conditions than we did in this project, as the lighting here, although everything can be seen reasonably clearly is slightly weak.
Willheart 