continuity editing film evaluation

The task we were given was to create a short film in groups in order to demonstrate the fundamentals of film making as well as practice continuity editing. We were also given a brief to follow for the short film which was ‘A character walks into a building and to a room. They meet another character in this room and engage in brief conversation. The character leaves.’

Our first step was to plan what the plot of our film was going to be, we decided that it was going to be based around a main character’s exam results. The character would walk into the building and then to a room, he would meet another character and receive his exam results. The first shot we filmed was an establishing shot of the building, this establishes the location/setting for the audience and allows them to be more immersed into the film.

Following this is a series of long shots/medium shots and close ups that follow the main character as he travels through the building. this allowed us to not only further establish the setting, but also to build up tension because of the time it takes the character to reach the room and receive the results. Furthermore, these shots allowed us to maintain continuity throughout the film and during the editing process. We also maintained continuity by shooting the footage with the same lighting, locations and clothing on the characters.

As the character enters the room, we used a shot reverse shot. This allowed the audience to see through the character’s perspective as he enters and starts conversation. An issue we had during filming was keeping the camera eye level with the characters for the scene. The next shot is an over the shoulder shot that follows the character as he walks up to the desk to receive his results. We chose this shot to allow the audience to experience the moment alongside the character, it makes the film more immersive for them. Finally, we used a close up on the results paper as the character opens it. Once again, the audience are experiencing the moment at the same time the character does. We edited this scene to fade to black quickly, this builds up suspense and leaves the editing up for interpretation by withholding information from the audience. 

To edit the footage, we imported it all from the SD card and into Premiere Pro. We used the grabbing tool to put the footage into order and then used the razor tool to cut out sections/frames that were either unnecessary or damaged the continuity of the edits. We faded certain scenes to black to build tension and make them flow better/avoid jump cuts. In addition to this we also imported a non- copyrighted song to play in the background, we chose this specific song to set the tone and increase tension.  As to not interfere with the dialogue, we applied audio transitions to the song which lowered/increased the audio gradually when necessary.

I have learned a lot about camera work by undertaking this task. This includes camera shots, the importance of lighting and camera focusing. I have also learned a lot about using Premiere Pro such as:

-I know how to work the cameras.

 -How to edit footage/audio.

-How to cut out certain sections. 

-Applying transitions to audio and footage.