Preliminary Exercises

Tracking Shot

A tracking shot (as the name implies) is a film technique used to follow a moving subject by ensuring it’s in frame at all times. It is used mainly to ensure that the main focus of a scene is recognized by the audience, as they are focused on where the subject is moving to. It can also be used as an establishing shot for a location. The clip below shows my example of a tracking shot where I film the car driving past as the camera follows it. We will most likely us a tracking shot in our production when filming Luke and Toni wheeling Rick out of the Robotica headquarters as it highlights their shady behaviour.

Over the Shoulder Shot

An over the shoulder shot is mainly used to display what a person is looking at as the shot is taken behind the person. This technique works especially well when portraying a conversation between 2 people. This is what we plan to do during the scene where Luke and Toni are discussing their success in modifying Rick at the coffee shop scene. The clip below shows me experimenting with the shot by showing the subject walking towards a car.

Point of View Tilt Pan

A point of view shot (POV) is used to show the audience what a person is looking at. The shot involves reflecting what the person see’s and can be very useful for putting the audience in the position of the character in a film. A tilt pan shot is commonly used for scenes of suspense as the slow movement of the camera makes the audience increasingly curious as the reveal is delayed. In the clip below I have combined the 2 shot types to create a potential film technique which we can use in our film.

Close Up 

A close up is mainly used to highlight a specific aspect of a subject. For example, a close up of a person’s face would show their emotions or feelings in more detail. In the example I have used below identifies a close up of a hacking screen, the close up shows how technologically advanced the clip is and how whoever is typing knows what they are doing. We plan to use this in the scene where Toni is hacking into Rick in order to advance his capabilities, a close up of his screen would tell the audience that Toni is knowledgeable for such technology.

Extreme Close Up

An extreme close up has the same principals as a normal close up only in far more detail. This is used so the subject takes up the entire frame which means the audience’s attention is focused only on 1 thing. The clip below I have used an eye opening as a close up because in our film we plan on using this when Rick is shown to activate after turning on. 

Preliminary Experiment 

On Monday 25th September myself, Richie, Tom and Max filmed a short film opening about a pizza delivery that goes wrong, we used a Cannon 750D and a Manfrotto tripod. I learnt to bubble the tripod which means making sure the camera is level using the built-in spirit level. The opening involves me walking to the door of where Richie and Tom were inside. I was suspiciously holding a pizza box. I then proceeded to knock on the door and Richie opened it and said, "Come in". Then there was a pan shot around the room and Tom said "You got the stuffed crust" and I said "Yeah I do" in an New York style Italian accent and then there was a close up of me revelling what was actually under the pizza box and it was a gun. I then shot Tom, then there was a stand-off between me and Richie to which I said "Put the Gun Down Rick."

A challenge that we faced in the filming process was that there was not enough room to do a proper establishing shot and we needed to do this because we wanted to introduce Tom as a very high ranked character and a way that we thought would do this would be by a establishing pan shot and we didn't have enough room in our first location to do this so we moved locations to the male changing rooms and then we managed to move the benched from the corner of the room to a more central location so our cameraman managed to get into the corner to film this and we managed to get the right shot.

A pizza delivery takes place. Person A delivers the pizza to person B.
Shot types and camera movements to include:

·                tracking shot of person A on the way.

·                pan as person A enters room.

·                Over the shoulder shot to show person B greeting / talking

·                over the shoulder shot to show person A's response

·                shot reverse shot to show person B

I had to show that I could:

·                Use a tripod to keep shots steady (bubble the tripod).

·                Focus the camera. 

·                Take care of the camera and tripod.

·                Observe the 180 degree rule.  

·                Edit the sequence to make meaning clear. 

·                add titles / sound to the edit.

During the task I did:

• ·       A faded transition at the start. I did this by dragging the “cross dissolve transition from the menu to the start of the edit. As shown in the picture.

• ·       Trimmed the clips to a suitable length to ensure the viewers won’t get bored
• ·       Added some suspenseful action film music as a backing track
• ·       Added gunshots for realism
• ·       Put a section in slow motion to add effect by highlighting the sounds and selecting the speed as slow

• ·      Ended with a suspenseful gunshot with instant black screen which leaves the audience with the question… WHO SHOT WHO?