Studio Lesson: Preliminary Task

In this week's studio lesson we filmed our preliminary task, the purpose of which to prepare us for our thriller sequences later on in the year. It was a very useful session as it allowed us to practise with the equipment we will be using a lot in the upcoming months, as well as the methods which will come into exercise upon starting to film our coursework.

At the start of the lesson we were shown our storyboards, and given a list of shots which must be included within the task: a wide shot, over-the-shoulder shot of character A, close-up of character B, over-the-shoulder shot of character B, and close-up of character A. Should we complete which, we would be allowed to spend the rest of the lesson filming more cinematic and interesting shots of our own devising to add into the sequence.

Within our group of three, we assigned out the roles of two actors and a cameraman, with each of us helping to direct and suggest our ideas to the rest of the group, and given our efficiency, we managed to get all the compulsory work done in a sensible time-frame, leaving us the rest of the session for our own shots.

Personally, my favourite shot that we filmed was from outside the classroom in which we were filming our prelim - getting to see character A walk into the classroom and confront character B before walking back out again. Having done so many indoor shots, I thought the contrast made this take really stand out and gave a whole new perspective to a scene which we had already run through countless amounts of times.

I also found the close-up shots particularly effective as they managed to capture a lot of detail and expression that weren't perhaps quite so obvious in the original wide shot.