180 degree rule research

The 180 degree rule is a rule used in most film-making to ensure shots appear fluid and continuous. It does this by featuring an imaginary axis between two characters, the camera stays on one side of this line. When the camera crosses the line it's called 'jumping the line' and if the 180 degree rule is broken by shooting on both sides it's called 'shooting in the round'. In order to avoid this, the camera must always stay on one side of the imaginary line for all shots filming the two characters/objects.

Although following the rule enables audiences to connect with movement in the background and visualise the scene more clearly, sometimes film-makers break the rule for good reason. This creates an effect of distortion to represent a scenario, environment or object. This is famously used multiple times in Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining'.

Despite this, my group and I are unlikely to break this rule throughout our opening as we aim to keep the cuts smooth and consistent which means following the 180 degree rule. However, we will consider breaking this rule as we are presenting a disturbed character and environment in our opening scene.

Final planning before storyboarding

Before storyboarding the final task, my group and I decided to discuss how we would implement the learning from the previous task into this one. One problem we encountered with the previous task was that our cam was often shaky when performing handheld and tracking shots. Therefore, we have agreed to use a dolly or tripod for the majority of the shots we take. After going over this with our teacher and reflecting on the mark scheme we decided this was a necessity as steady shots account for a large portion of the marks.

Moreover, this gave us further inspiration for the shots we had previously brainstormed. We adapted the plan to reduce the amount of handheld by using more steady shots and close-ups. Despite this, we can still edit the footage we take to look distorted and disturbed through editing or using canted angles. We then researched more ways to represent a disturbed character and setting, for example: colour-correcting shots, changing focus throughout shots, erie or sharp diegetic ambience etc...

As I am drawing and planning the storyboard along with help from Benoit, I have decided to do further research into camera angles and mis-en-scene. Before doing so, I drafted a storyboard with shots I could possibly use throughout the intro to signify that the character is disturbed in a dangerous environment. In doing so, I hope to have more inspiration when drawing out the final storyboard.

[Draft storyboard]

180 degree rule task

For help on planning our shots, my group and I have been given the task of planning, shooting and editing a clip with the following criteria:

[Criteria]

In order to succeed in this task our group first decided to plan out the shots we would take- scripting and dialogue was less important in this task as that was not what we were being evaluated on. We chose to use a variety of shots to build suspense in our clip as that would prepare us for the final task of making a thriller.

1. (MS) Character #1 (Aayush) slowly walking towards the camera whilst on the phone.
2. (ECU) Of the phone displaying a text message received by character #2 (Ashley) telling (Aayush) to meet him in the cafe.
3. (Tracking Shot) tracking (Aayush's) movements from his location to the cafe, then meets (Ashley).
4. (Pan) round (Aayush) to reveal character #2 sitting down as character #1 takes a seat opposite character #2.
5. (MS) cut-in = Character #1 sits down. He begins to talk to character#2 
6. (Over Shoulder Shot) shot over character #2's perspective as character#1 talks
7. (MS) character #2 responds to the dialogue.
8. (CU) character #1 expresses facial expression 
9. (CU) character #1 clenches fist
10. (MS) camera placed behind character #1 as he swings his arm to punch character #2.
11. Over shoulder shot of character #2 as he reacts to the punch.

In addition to planning the shots, we also had to storyboard them to complete our planning for this task:

For our final piece the storyboard will be much more developed with more detailed pictures and more annotations as the dialogue and transitions will be more complex. We will also used more advanced filming equipment and an actual set rather than only filming in school.

Once we were happy with our planning we collected the equipment, we took a tripod as well as a camera to ensure we got steady-shots where we wanted them. The rest of the filming was fairly straight forward, however we made a few continuity errors when filming as the props in some shots were not included in others due to lack of proportion. As a result we had to re-film some mistakes we had noticed in editing. However, this also gave us a chance to re-shoot some shots that we thought could be improved or changed to give a different effect on the audience. As our main focus was continuity, we decided to replace the shots where the background changed at different angles, as the lack of continuity took away some immersion from the clips.

Furthermore, we decided to re-shoot a couple of shots featured which gave an unnecessary affect. For example, one zoom pan seemed particularly out place, as well as a tracking over the shoulder shot. By replacing these two shots with multiple still shots the final product resulted in being more continuous.

Here is our final piece for this task: