Camera Workshop 4: Crossing The Line

For our fourth camera workshop we were back in Studio 5. This was our last camera workshop so it was time to use all of our new skills and create one final piece. We were given a script and a brief which said we had to create a sequence about the 180 degree rule. This sequence had to include at least 3 or 4 different shots and of course, we could not break the rule.

Before shooting anything I looked at the script and thought about how it could be shot, then I asked the actors (my classmates) to act out the scene so I could look at how they do it and decide where I could put the camera. After watching them I decided to shoot handheld and use a lav mic and a boom mic to capture audio. I shot from a few angles (over the shoulder, wide, two shot...) and asked them to act out the full scene each time so I had a few takes of the same dialogue to work with. Before each take I asked my boom operator if the sound was good, once she confirmed, I started to film. Once I was happy with the footage I shot one angle of character 1 waiting for character 2 to arrive and one angle of character 1 looked at the 180 degree line (added in post) after character 2 had left. Next it was time to edit.

Whilst editing I started with the two shot and worked around that. I put together a radio edit first to ensure all the dialogue lined up and worked, and then I went back through and fixed the visuals with the ripple edit and rolling edit tools. Next I used After Effects to add in my 180 degree line for the final shot. And then finally I fixed the audio levels and added some music. I had some issues with audio because some of my clips had a lot of background noise. I had to just work around this and do my best to cover it up and hide the transitions between different takes of audio. Before exporting I decided to change the opening of the clip and remove the arrival of character 2. Instead I started it from the line of dialogue "So I think we should talk about crossing the line". I did this because I felt the arrival wasn't shot very well (my own fault) and so didn't fit nicely into the edit. This change did take me under the 1min minimum for the project but it's a choice I had to make for it to work. Here is the final version:

I am very pleased with the final version and happy with the decisions I made in terms of angles and shot types, and cuts in the edit. I think this was a successful and fun workshop.