Homeland Continuity Task

1. What was your role in the task and what did you actually do?
     My role in the production of our Homeland continuity task was to be the camera operator, i worked very closely with Alize who was the director and together in pre-production we came up with the shot list, which had all the details of the camera work such as, where it would be located, who it would be focused on and what type of framing it would be. In the actual production of our task i was mainly operating the camera and setting up the shots and getting the framing right, referring back to the shot list we had previously made. I also helped set up and organise where things were going to go in the room for the investigation scene, and occasionally chimed in with some comments which i thought would make our shoot more successful.

2. What factors did you have to take into account when planning, filming and editing?
     When planning our shoot i had to pay particular attention to the 30 degree rule and the 180 degree rule, which in certain areas of our shoot created a large problem for instance, the hallway scene where Derek and Harvey turn from greeting each other to entering the room. Alize and i spent quite a large chunk of our time working out how to shoot this scene while still following those rules. During filming it was fairly easy to follow these rules as we had already planned out our shots, we also had the interrogation table close to the wall which made it really easy to follow the 180 degree rule as it would've been difficult to film the scene from the other side of the 180 degree line. When i was editing the footage the most difficult part was getting match-on-action as the sound audio overlapped at places and so i had to use sound bridges and and overlay sound from one shot over another to give the task a better continuity flow.

3. How successful was your sequence? Did you manage to demonstrate match-on-action, shot-reverse-shot and the 180 degree rule? Did you achieve continuity overall?
     I believe that my sequence was very successful and i created a good edit of our footage for my Homeland continuity task. I believe i managed to demonstrate match-on-match action very well with all of the movement scenes, from Harvey's entrance through the white doors all the way til he leaves with Derek at the end of the interrogation. Another thing that i believe i managed to do well was the shot-reverse-shot between characters during the interrogation, which helped to build tension and also show the actor's facial expressions while still following the 180 degree rule and staying on the same side of that line. I firmly believe that i achieved a good standard of continuity over all, however a few of the cuts between shots look a bit jumpy but with the time i had i believed they were quite good and that my edit had a flow to it throughout its entirety.

4. What have you learnt from completing this task?
      From completing this task i have learnt the importance of good camera work withing a shoot, especially the framing of the shots. However the biggest thing i learnt, was the importance of planning because our shoot was very smooth and flowed very well and i believe this was because we split up into teams and each planned what we were going to do on the day of filming and what our specific jobs were, which made it a lot easier to get nice shots and not waste too much of our limited time, on our filming day.