Shooting and editing the dialogue sequence

Shooting the dialogue sequence

We shot our dialogue sequence on Thursday 10th February as a practice sequence in order to gain more practice before we shoot our final opening title sequence. I worked with Ollie, Isabella, Meadow, Lila and Matthew. Our group did a simple sketch of a man (Ollie) sweeping a broom around a woman (Meadow) whereby she fires him from his job. 

We used several skills we learned in our first filming workshop, including several rules on set, the 180-degree rule, and rules of thirds. The 180-degree rule was incredibly important during our sequence especially because we had an added focal point of dialogue which we hadn't done in previous workshops, the 180-degree rule brings in an aspect of continuity for the audience as it goes hand in hand with composition, specifically rules of thirds, we tried to keep all of Ollies sequences in the left-hand quadrant and all of Meadows scenes in the right-hand quadrant, this not only helps the sequence flow more easily, but it helps the audience gauge who is talking and what action is taking place. In addition to this, rules on set are extremely important, before each shot the director said "stand by" whereby they waited for the answer of "standing by" from everyone on set, then they were able to have everyone's attention and make sure everyone was ready to begin filming, the director then said "roll camera" whereby the camera operator would reply with "camera rolling" this ensures that the camera is recording and no silly errors are made such as the camera operator to forget to film the scene! after this, the director then proceeds to say "action" whereby the action in front of the camera begins, once the scene is completely finished the director then yells "cut!". The use of these rules ensures that everyone on set knows what they're doing at that exact time and that the people on set and behind the camera are completely focused on what they're supposed to be doing.

Our shoot went fairly smoothly, although some problems we faced were continuity and timing issues as putting the action and dialogue together over several shoots proved more complicated than imaginable, therefore when editing our clips these errors may become more apparent... in addition to this, we also couldn't decide the camera angles necessary, therefore we did several angles such as wide angles, close-ups and over the shoulder shots. If we were to do another practice sequence I think that we should focus on headspace when doing wide shots as well as mid shots, in certain scenes in our sequence, we cut out people's feet in substitution for extra space of the ceiling! Additionally, when filing properly we need to make sure we bubble our camera every time we reset our angle and shot, and also remember to change the white balance depending on where we are filming.

Editing the Dialogue Sequence

Today, (28th February) we edited our dialogue sequence, I worked alongside Lila to edit our footage on Premiere Pro.

We began by looking through our footage to see which clips would be feasible and what wouldn't work at all. Once we had a rough idea we began editing in a "ping pong" manner, whereby the shot focused on whoever was talking, meaning that the shots kept cutting and going back and forth, similar to ping pong!

We then moved on to editing in a way that portrayed who held the power in the scene, we did this by focusing on one character rather than the other, a key way to do this is to focus on their reaction to the other person's dialogue. When editing this we decided to give Meadow the focus of the scene, whereby we used no close-ups or mid shots of Ollie alone and gave all of the focus to her. This type of editing is extremely useful to represent who "the good guys" are within a scene because as the audience watches they see it from a completely different perspective as normally they feel inclined to like the character they're predominantly watching. Examples of this are when the audience sees robbers' perspectives and you feel inclined to want them to get away with it as opposed to the police stopping them!

Moreover, we used the "unlink" tool which detaches the audio from the clip. This tool is extremely useful within editing as it gives you the ability to reuse sound as well as link shots together, for example, we had a midshot of meadow and then cut to a close up of her face, by detaching the audio we reduced any change in the sound of the clips as well as helping the clip to flow more. Despite this, it was extremely difficult to match the clips and sound up, although we managed to make it work! In addition to this we also learnt how to help different sound clips match up using the "constant power" effect, this helps two sounds flow into one another seeminglessly as the sounds match up to each other far better than they would without this effect.

A crucial mistake we made was the white balance, whereby we were filming in a well-lit room and I believe we had the outdoor setting on. The white balance is incredibly important to adjust depending on where you shoot, by forgetting to change it, this resulted in all of our clips having an orangy undertone to then, whereby it was clear we were in the wrong setting. In addition to this, we also didn't choose the best camera angles, despite using a range of camera angles by starting out by using wide shots and then slowly doing more specific shots, some of our shots just weren't as effective as we had anticipated. An example of this is when we did a close up of Ollies feet, we hadn't positioned the camera in the correct place and there was too much coverage of the floor as opposed to Ollie and his legs. Therefore, when filimging our actual opening title sequence I would focus moreso on rules of thirds and positioning within the shot. Finally, another error we made was to do with continuity, I don't think well find this problem as much during our actual opening title sequence as due to the length of the scene as well as the lack of dialogue many of the shots will be able to work by themselves. But during our shooting of the dialogue sequence we struggled to get the continuity balance whereby swapping between scenes when editing added up seeminglessly, an example of this is when Ollie begins to talk to his broom, in a few of the shots he's looking at it, although in other clips he's looking at Meadow, therefore when editing its difficult to match up the shots seeminglessly.

We didn't entirely follow the 180 degree rule due to the complexity of our sequence although we did try to follow it as well as we could have. The 180-degree rule focuses on an imaginary line between the two characters which helps you keep each character to their own side of the screen, specifically when filming over the shoulder shots. Due to the lack of 180-degree rule, editing our footage proved to be quite difficult! Therefore, when shooting our actual sequence its crucial that we take into account the 180-degree rule.

When editing our actual sequence we wouldn't edit it using the ping pong technique, this is not only because we have little to no dialogue but because it takes away elements of hierarchy and power within the scene, as during our scene we want the audience to favour the girl, and portray her as strong, powerful and admirable. By having more shots of her and also placing the hunter in the far ground, this highlights her empowerment within the scene.