Preliminary Task Script

Jayendra: Hey

Esom: Hey, have you seen the new hunger games movie yet?

Jayendra: No, did you go watch it?

Esom: Yeah, it was so good.

Jayendra: I’ve read the book and I didn’t actually like it.

Esom: What are you talking about? It’s the best one in the series.

Jayendra: No, the first one was the best. After that, it just went downhill.

Esom: Are you being serious?

Jayendra: Yeah, I don’t understand why everyone likes it so much. I think everybody just likes Jennifer and Josh and so they “like” the movie; just because they’re in there.

Esom: No, it’s got nothing to do with her specifically. It’s the story itself, it’s so exciting and inspiring.

Jayendra: It’s boring.

Esom: And each time there’s a new one, it just gets better. Plus the characters are so well-written and their backstories are so sad.

Jayendra: It’s mentioned once, then they never mention it again. The books are pretty bad, the movies are even worse.

Esom: That’s not true, do you know how many people went to the premiere? Would they go watch a movie that’s boring?

Jayendra: I think the movie people just bribe them, just to pretend that people are excited because in reality, everybody else apart from you is just waiting for the series to be over you know.

Esom: No, that’s too far. I don’t want to talk to you.

Representation - Class

The genre my group decided on was a sport drama. Sport dramas are mainly popular with teens and young adults as that's who is usually the main character. Class in these films class can be easily identified as working to middle class. Examples are where a white American girl in her teens who finds a horse in the wild and she goes from zero to hero or a black African American who lives in the 'hood' and makes his way into the NFL or NBA.

These films usually follow Todorov's theory which is the three step narrative structure of the equilibrium then disequilibrium and resolution. 

These type of films have stereotypical representations as I stated before such as the movies Blindside which follows the fame of an athlete who was once in poverty or a rich girl going to become equestrian. In the film Coach Carter it begins with what seems to be a run down place which suggests that the film is set in a lower class area which is conventional in these type of films, they usually represent class by using ethnic minorities struggling with life.

The film Moneyball starring Jonah Hill and Brad Pitt shows the middles class and how they look at sport, the working class usually see sports as diversion to their normal life and to get away from stress whilst the middle class are usually apart of the sport being managers which Moneyball shows.

Film Analysis

Preliminary Task

Story&Narrative- Todorov

Conventional Storylines

• The character discovers their skill or love for the sport.
• The characters parent/carer retired from after a career ending injury and tries to tell the protagonist not to do the sport.
• The protagonist is from the slums and because the world’s best

Theorist: Todorov

Tzvetan Todorov (1960s) Narrative structure follows three steps of everything being normal or the Equilibrium then a problem occurs that needs to be solved which is the Disequilibrium and then the problem is solved which is the Resolution.

Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task Analysis

I took up the role of the camera man in my group and by being the cameraman I learnt that it is not easy to take a shot and that the lens has to be properly focused before you start filming or it will not look good, the camera-work could have been much better if it was focused and the lighting was better. I also was in charge of writing the script which I did not find very difficult because it was a short clip but I can see that i would be difficult if it were a two hour film, in our video we changed a few words to make it sound more realistic

Our group did did some pre-production work, we did both script and a storyboard before filming our scene for the preliminary task. We used the necessary areas well including match-on-action, the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot however the use of the shot reverse shot could have been used better as during the dialogue we did not keep up the shot reverse shot however everything else was normal, it may not have been professional but it is to a good enough standard to tell what it was we also gave enough lead room so the audience can tell who the characters are talking too. The natural lighting gave the preliminary task some verisimilitude or realism.

There was a part during the filming which ruined the continuity, there was a jump cut which was not meant to be there but there was a mistake which had to cut out. For our preliminary task had to film twice because the first time we did it, it didn't turn out too well because we did not do the shot reverse shot very well neither so we re-filmed it however even with our second version it would have been better if it was continuous and smooth also the lens to be focused.

For the film opening I will have to learn how to edit properly and uses more advanced camera and editing techniques so the end product looks professional.

Preliminary task Analysis

The role I had taken in the preliminary task was script writing, this meant that I had to take into consideration the courses of action which included: idea generation, research, planning, characters and then writing. I would say that it was a challenge to follow through with such courses of action as I had difficulty in coming up with an idea to follow through. Not only that based on the script I had to direct the actors (Jainisha and I) to sit in specific places and act certain ways. From this role I learn’t that I needed to take a lot more time to come up with a script that would last around a minute and a half. This is because in the first video we took the video only lasted for around fifty-seven seconds meaning the script wasn't long enough.

Also, the pre-production of the script and storyboard wasn't the best. In our first video that we made, the main reason why the preliminary task lasted fifty-seven seconds is because the script wasn't long enough so some of the lines had to be improvised, but because the words were not always the same we found that it was harder to edit.

After watching the video we discovered that the camera work wasn't as effective. This is because when filming match-on-action the actors arm didn't reach out for the door before the close-up so when viewing the final video we noticed this. However, the 180 degree rule was done well and when watching we didn't get confused when an actor was suddenly on the wrong side but when filming shot reverse shot actor A would be seen talking and instead of seeing the response of actor B we could only hear her talking through most of it despite fully completing the shot reverse shot later on. This made the video seem uninteresting and feel like the video was taking longer to end.

Overall the continuity editing could have been improved and as a second attempt we had learn’t mistakes we did through class feedback and in my opinion I believe that the things we need to mostly improve on is, camera work, editing and script writing. The skills we would need to acquire before the actual production of our own film opening would be to build up on mistakes and notice them quicker so that we can improve them just as quick before any set deadline. We would also need a better understanding of the different types of rules in editing that will help us execute the editing part of our film opening.

Preliminary storyboard