preliminary exercise

Preliminary exercise

• Brief:

• Film and edit a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom s/he exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate: match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180° rule.

Match on action

• Also known as ‘Cutting on Action’.

• Matching the action from one shot to the next to prevent the audience being distracted by the shot transition.

Shot / reverse shot

• Technique to show two or more characters talking to each other.

• Characters appear to be looking in opposite directions, leading audience to believe they are talking to each other.

• What is ‘eye line match’?

180° DEGREE RULE

• ‘Crossing the Line’

• Characters should always stay on the same side relative to each other to help the audience understand movement off-screen. Otherwise the audience is confused!

Planning

• In your groups, plan and storyboard your preliminary exercise making sure to include all of the compulsory elements.

• Create a storyboard and write your script to help plan the shoot.

• We will shoot and edit them next lesson (Tuesday & Friday).