Continuity Sequence

'Heist'

Our task was to create a short film in which we portrayed a transaction of some kind and we also were required to convey different aspects of continuity and mise-en-scene this including:

• Lighting
• High or low camera angles.
• Different shot distances. 
• Any camera movement. 
• Fades or dissolves. 
• The Continuity System 

 In the opening shot you can immediately tell we are in the space of somewhere not quite kosher, the initial anonymity of the person, the use of lighting is focused on the table, creating multiple shadows and the background isn't illuminated this is known as 'Chiaroscuro' and even the sight of multiple bottles of alcohol convey a dark feel to things.

For the majority of the shots we used Eye level/rule of thirds because this places the veiwer into the scene as it were, in this shot the camera appears to be sat at the opposite end of the table and this induces immersion. Another point could be that there is a sense of status with the person in blue (me) being below the person in red (Vlad) due to the body language conveyed for example the lack of eye contact and in fact looking down could be a submissive trait over the domineering Vlad.

Match on action

Match on action is a continuity editing tool in which is used to show action by leading from a motion to another shot that completes the motion; in this case it is used to promote the movement of throwing the money into the bowl as the money aspect of this short film is a major part. All in all the match on action was pretty much bang on with the timing and the shooting and flowing naturally.

The shot used here is over the shoulder and this shows the view from Bruce and shows that he is above me and Vlad, the issue here is that everything is cluttered on the right side of the screen which is slightly disorientating, but the shot is fast paced so the negative impact isn’t very prominent and it also leads into another match on action shot that again flows well and is timed very well. (Match on action shots below)

Birds eye/establishing shot

This was quite an interesting one to shoot as it was a camera on a tripod, on a desk, so we had to press record set up its positioning and then record the shot, overall I think the shot is really quite effective in the way it is conveyed and it is used as an establishing so as we know I am in the centre, Vlad is on the right (my left) and Bruce is on the left (my right) the lighting works well as it keeps the focus on only the illuminated objects and people and the background is dark, one criticism is that the shot isn’t centralised correctly, but personally I think the slightly offset angle works well, also due to height restrictions we were unfortunately all slightly cropped from the shot.

Close Up/POV shot

In these shots we started with a close up of me looking right towards Vlad and then right towards Bruce, the following shots are a mixture of close up and POV and show the action from a very personal and up close way, it emits a huge amount of tension between the two and i thought was very effective.

Problems

• There are actually a fair few continuity errors in things e.g. the lights being moved and these were purposely moved in order to get the correct lighting for certain shots.
• We were very short on recording time due to the battery dying on not one, but two cameras; this hindered our ability to convey the key focus of the transaction element which was a shame as we had scripted the entire thing.