In the next three sessions you are going to complete a short production task, which is designed to advance your filming and editing skills ahead of your music video planning and filming days.

To complete these tasks effectively you’re going to have to think carefully about how the edit is going to look at the end and ensure that you film all the shots you need.

PRELIM TASK 2 – BRIEF

You should film a very short narrative sequence but with no dialogue (you can add music later/sound FX if required).  It  should last no longer than 25 – 30 seconds (@ 15 shots).  IT HAS TO SHOW ACTION AND REACTION.

You will create a storyboard.  However, you decide to do this, you will have at least 15 shots for 30 seconds of film.  Include:

• an image – stick people will do
• type of shot – LS, CU, Tilt, Pan etc
• description of facial expressions/action

POST IT NOTES – allow you to move shots around without re-drawing everything.

or

Story Board 01

Additional Information:

1. Remember to remind your actors of any specific costumes they might need and you and your partner need to organise props, locations  around the school etc.
2. Shoot for continuity using to condense time and space.
3. Use speed in the edit to infer tension.
4. Use close ups to show reactions / expression of the person – many of you missed these essential narrative moments in the Prelim Task – don’t do it this time.
5. Shoot to edit at least one eye line match – significant object/person
6. Edit in at least one match on action – again, many of you missed the detail and purpose of MOA in the Prelim.
7. Use an establishing shot and stick to the 180 degree rule.
8. Remember the rule of thirds and basic composition – lead space etc
9. You can add some movement of the camera this time if it helps convey the narrative.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
It’s also a good opportunity to look at the assessment criteria relating to filming and ensure that you take those into account during your planning and filming. They are:

1. Holding a shot steady
2. Framing a shot
3. (Shooting a) variety of shot distances

You should do the following in the post:

• Outline the task and what you are learning (use the success criteria in red above)
• Embed the video
• Embed and link the storyboard as a pdf (scanned from Photocopier)
• x 3 bullet points of strengths
• x 3 bullet points of weaknesses
• Summarise what you have learnt about editing in preparation for your music video production.

SOME SUGGESTED SCENES – action and reaction.

• You get out of a car with your instructor and she hands you your pass certificate with reactions.
• You give someone a bunch of flowers and they open the card with reactions.
• You score the winning goal in basket ball with reactions.
• You give someone a letter and they open it and read it with reactions.
• You open your school report having been given it by the teacher.

1. Export your video from Premiere Pro (use an H.264 file format & match source attributes);
2. Upload your video to your YouTube channel;
3. Copy the embed code underneath your video in YouTube;
4. Paste the embed code into the text tab in your blog or go to add ‘Add Media’ and ‘Embed media’;
   • Here is a link on how to do this
5. Then cut and paste the following sentences into your post and complete the sentence stems…

• I have used the following camera techniques…
• I used these techniques to create a sense of/that….
• I have learnt to use the following continuity editing rules…
• I used these rules to…
• I have learnt to use the following tools/techniques in Premiere Pro…
• I used these tools to…
• If I was to do this project again I would do some things differently,…

You should also embed your Script with its annotated shot list.

The Blog League for Music Video starts this week.

The preliminary task is a compulsory piece of coursework that all students must complete as part of their Foundation Portfolio. The purpose is to train you in some basic camera and editing techniques, that you will then use and develop in your main production piece.

It’s an opportunity to learn some new skills and whilst it is coursework it doesn’t matter if it goes wrong, as you don’t get any marks for it. However, if you don’t do it and embed it into your blog it will cost you 15 coursework marks!

The brief for the preliminary task is:

“A continuity task involving filming and editing a two characters in conversation, with one character who leaves the room’.

This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.”

You should copy and paste the brief as a post into your blog.

Examples

Here are two example preliminary tasks made by the media teachers, spot the mistakes:

Here is the script which we would like you to use on the shoot.

You will be working in pairs for this task and should film about half of the shots each. As actors you do not need to learn the words and the present can just be in a plastic bag.

• Please annotate the script with the shots you will want to use  – CU, ECU, LS, MOA, SRS etc
• The camera has to stay on the tripod and try and avoid movement shots at this stage.
• Keep the script and annotations as this will be uploaded to the blog too.
• Make sure you film the person leaving at the end.