What was your brief?
Our brief is a continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom he/she then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.
Main rules on continuity editing;
Continuity editing is an organised form of editing which allows the viewers to have a knowledge of the exact space and time of the character/s at any given moment in the shot and thus making a clear and straightforward narrative to follow. These methods that will be mentioned below cannot be seen straightaway from shot to shot as we are not consciously aware of these editing techniques being put in practice whilst watching anything. This classical editing achieves a ‘smooth’ and ‘seamless’ style of narration because of it’s conventionality and it engages a number of techniques that are designed to maximize a sense of spatial and temporal continuity.
180 DEGREE RULE
The 180 degree rule states that the camera must stay on one side of the actions and objects in the scene at all times. An invisible line, known as the ‘180 degree line’ or ‘axis of action’ runs through the middle of the scene, which allows the camera to shoot from any position so long as the camera stays at that side of the line at all times and never crosses. This technique/convention ensures that the characters remain on the same side of the screen and in the same relationship once the films have been edited and presented to the viewers. If the line is crossed, incorrectly, the characters look as if they were facing the same way, with one character talking to the back of the other’s head. This clip demonstrates this simple yet effective rule:
SHOT REVERSE SHOT
This is a pattern of alternating shots between the characters and the dialogue being spoken. 1) A simple shot-reverse-shot consisting of the camera simply alternating between shots to show one of the characters at a time (usually the one speaking) seeing as this is the character we as viewers need to concentrate on. 2) An over-the-shoulder-shot are used in sequences that involve a conversation exchange between characters. The camera is commonly placed behind the shoulder of one of the characters and you are able to see both of the characters speaking to each other. 3) A less common approach but still to be mentioned a point-of-view-shot (POV). This is where the camera is placed where originally the characters eyes would have been and this shows a full frontal view of what the character is looking at. Here is a short clip demonstrating this rule:
MATCH ON ACTION/CUTTING ON MOTION
A match on action embeds cuts in the middle of an action, this technique allows us to “hide” the cuts since the viewer is focusing on the action rather than the editing. It is where a certain cut slices through two different views of the same action together at the same moment in the movement making it seem uninterrupted, this makes it one of the most common transitions in the continuity rules, this is because seeing as the cut happens during the action this creates a seamless flow. Here is another short clip to represent this rule:
There are also other less significant rules that we may not use but are still used in the media industry such as the 30 DEGREE RULE which means that the camera moves at least 30 degrees between shots, this is used for example when 2 or more shots look too similar, that is when this technique is used in order to create a sense of ‘change’ even though there has hardly been one. Modern directors call this type of technique a JUMP CUT.
A technique that is used less commonly but still worth mentioning is the CUT ON ACTION TO TIME TRAVEL as this can carry the viewer through time, which for example can consist of the same time and space, but say a character growing up but performing the same action.
Another yet important editing technique is called the EYE-LINE MATCH that keeps the spatial (surroundings) continuity and makes the cuts less noticeable. For example a character’s gaze is directly precise to the next shot which shows who or what she/he may have been looking at and this corresponds to the spatial lay-out in earlier/further shots.
In our lessons, my group planned what our preliminary exercise’s scenario would be. We spent one lesson storyboarding the whole preliminary exercise as we have learnt that this is a vital step.
After storyboarding, we spent another lesson rehearsing with the flipcams. After rehearsing, the next lesson our group filmed our exercise and uploaded it to the Macs. After that, we spent the last lesson editing the final preliminary task in order to get an essence of the whole process before our actual thriller opening work.
Here is our edited and finished preliminary task.
Dominika Krywcun 