Preliminary Task

Preliminary task

For my preliminary task, I alongside my group had to create and film a short TV sequence. This TV sequence was supposed to be specifically a TV drama aimed to show our understanding on different and important rules used in TV dramas. Although we had to create our own script and handle the body of our TV drama alone for example mise-en-scene, we had to follow a specific scenario. The first character opens a door and walks into a room, of which a second character is waiting, then the first character takes a seat opposite the first character and they exchange a few words. Key rules we have to a good understand of are:
- Match on Action
- Shot-reverse-shot
- 180-degree

Before anything we had to make a script following the scenario as instructed. The script was short and simple as we want to keep the footage short, flowing smoothly. Our main aim was to show a good understanding of the three key rules.

Script:
A: Hi
B: What took you so long.
A: It's a long story.
B: Tell me then.
A: I Can’t!
B: Why?
A: I...I... killed someone.
B: What!

Synopsis:
Character A walks along a corridor emotionally depress knowing he has something to tell character B. As he opens the door and walks into the room of which character B is waiting he goes to take a seat opposite her. Once he is seated and a little pressure is exerted from character B, he reveals that he killed someone, character B stays seated with a shocked look on her face.

Once we had completed the script we moved on to the story board, which show the order of our shots. We did this by drawing pictures which also showed what would be happening in each shot so that when it got down to the actual filming we would know exactly what it was we were filming which also went on to help our filming to be completed with less time than it would otherwise. We also had a separate shot list

Shot list
- Long shot of corridor before character A walks in.
- Changes into a medium shot as the character comes closer.
- Use of pan to make sure the camera stays tuned on the character
- Medium shot as character A enters from outside the room then onto the inside
- Pan used as character A crosses the room as well making sure the 180 degree rule is not violated
- Mid shot of character A seated opposite character B
- Close shot of character B
- Shot reverse shot as characters A and B exchange text (close shot).

Story Board:

Filming
Filming went mainly because one of our group members has decent experience which was a major boost. On the other hand we did have a few problems firstly while the camera man was filming the sequence he realised one of the legs on the tripod was slightly damaged which meant he had to be extra careful making sure the camera was kept steady throughout. As well as that when it came to filming character A walking through the room towards the seat it was quite hard for the camera man to finds a spot because the room was full of tables and chairs, but we completed the filming successfully and went on the show an audience. We received a lot of helpful feedback and helped us realise plenty mistakes and things we could have changed, so we went on to film the whole sequence again revisiting all mistake made previously

Editing
Once all the filming was completed we then went on to edit our footage. To do this we had to upload all of the filmed footage onto our computers in order to edit them using final cut pro which was extremely hard to use as it was a first for me but with a few lessons I got the hang of it. Once I uploaded the footage onto my computer system with the assistance of one of my group members I cut out all the parts I felt were unnecessary and the few mistakes made while filming. Use of final cut pro was helpful because it meant we were allowed to continue film even though mistakes were made.