Match cut task

In today’s lesson we had a task which was to create a clip which had the following shots within it; one shot reverse shot, one 180 degree shot and one match cut shot. I thought this task was going to be easy but I underestimated it at the beginning, and found out in the end, that it is hard to get all of the shots perfect and for them to all link within one scene. Before we could start shooting me and my partner Shekira had to come up with an idea of what the scene was going to be about. First of all we brain stormed a few ideas that we both had. Then we both put our ideas together and formed a storyline. The concept of the storyline was an angry young male going to meet his girlfriend who had something to tell him. After we decide on the storyline we immediately started to plan the mise en scene for the scene and started planning the type of shots we were going to have and how we were going to incorporate all the shots we had to include into the scene. We did all our planning by story boarding what was going to happen in the scene step by step.

Once we finished all our planning we started to film our shots. In the scene I was the boy actor therefore I didn’t get to do a lot of filming. However I had a lot of input in how the shot should be taken. For example I and my partner would record a one shot from one angel a few times, then we would watch back one the clips, then discuss how it looks. After that I would give my opinion of the shot and we would film exactly the same shot from a different angel or with different lighting. I think that the match shot we did, when the angry boy walked through the door was very smooth and vey professional and was the easiest shot to film out of the film. Then I believe that the shot reverse shot between the two characters arguing worked well. However I believe to make this work better we could have made the shots a lot shorter and quicker therefore it would have made the conversation a lot more realistic. Finally I think the hardest shot to film was the 180 degree shot, this was simply because we did not understand what a 180 degree shot was, we thought that it was more like a panning shot from one character to another. Then when finished editing our shots and putting them together using “Live Type” a video editing programme. We found out that our shot that we thought was a 180 degree shot was incorrect. Then we were told what a real 180 degree shot was, which is a basic guideline in film making that states two characters/other elements in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. This was useful to me so that I knew the true defection of 180 degree shot and to make sure that I don’t make the same mistake in future filming sessions.

I found that our editing process was very easy because we had a variety of shots to choose from that connected the storyline together. One thing that I think we could have improved on was the connections between different cuts to make sure the clip run smoothly. However on a whole I believe that we did quite well for a task we were given only a few hours before having to plan film and edit it all in one day. I was really proud of the clip and it made me aware of my weak and strong points within filming and editing. I also liked the use of our creativity at the end when there is shot of a blank screen and you can only hear the boy’s voice in the background. That shot was such a simple shot but very effective.