Continuity

From reading the 'Making Your Film Make Sense' booklet, pages from the folder and doing the accidents task during class, I have learnt many key tips for making a film make sense, and continue.

The main things I have learnt are the rules for continuity editting, especially the '180 degree rule', '30 degree rule', 'match on action', 'shot/rverse/shot' and 'eyeline match'.

The 180 degree rule shows us that it is important to not cross the 'line of vision'. This is because if there are two people in one shot facing eachother, it is important not to make it seem like they are on the same side/coming from the same way, as this may confuse the viewer. This was demonstrated by another group doing the accidents task, as when they filmed two people bumping into eachother, they accidentally made both people walk from the same direction. So from reading the booklet, I have learnt that the camera has to stay on the same side, as this diagram illlustrates:

There is also the 30 degree rule, which tells us that we cannot jump from one camera angle to another angle which is less than 30 degrees apart. This is because it will look confusing to the viewer, and it won't look easy on the eye, as it will just look as though the camera has 'jumped'. This was in fact shown by my group, during the accident task. We shot two shots of 'the fall', one where she is mid air, and then another where she is falling down. However, when we shot the two different shots, they were shot from different angles, so when they were put together, the camera jumped maybe about 30 degrees, and the fall looked very strange.

Another reason why our shot of the fall looked strange was because we didn't match the two shots exactly. This is the rule 'match on action', where we must match two action shots exactly, to make it flow. i.e. the end of the first action shot must be the beginning of the second.

From the booklet, I had also learnt the rule 'shot/reverse/shot', where we must first shoot one character who is facing one direction, and the second character who is facing the other direction. This was also demonstrated by the other group in the accident task, who accomplished this rule well, by showing the two people's faces, before one decided to kick the other.
Their two shots also worked well as they accomplished the 'eyeline match' rule too, which is where the gazes of two characters match (e.g. if one is taller than the other, they are looking down, while the other is looking up).

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Other than these Continuity Editing rules, I have learnt about all the different transitions, lighting, camera movement and framing. These were learnt from not only reading the booklet, but the task during class where we had to film various shots.

There are different transitions such as cuts, dissolves, fades and wipes; all of which convey meaning and help the film flow. The main transition is a cut, which is almost invisible to the viewer, and the least common is a wipe, as this sometimes looks too childish.

I also recapped all the different camera distances and framings, including VLS, LS, MS, CU and ECU. In class we also learnt about the 'Establishing Shot', which is a VLS which shows the audience the setting, and where everyone is in comparison to other characters, and is usually shown first in a sequence.

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So from reading the booklet and doing the tasks during class, I have learnt a lot, and they will help me largely in the future. For example, by just doing the accidents task, my group and I had accidentally broken the 30 degree rule and match on action rule, and we can now learn from our mistakes.