Skills audit: Filming and editing preliminary match cut exercise

For our Skills audit; filming and editing we asked to create a preliminary match cut. In ours, we had Julekha and Forida as actresses whilst I directed and Michael filmed. We wanted to practise using different shot types, so we used a variety of shot types to portray different things. For example we used SRS when the two were exchanging dialogue, and took advantage of this, so we could see the person’s expressions clearly. When Julekha walked through the corridor we were careful not to break the 180 degree shot rule, as we shot from two different angles. This was hard as it was difficult to know if you had broken it, but fortunately we didn’t. We used several match cuts within the clip, for example, when Julekha is walking down the corridor and she gets the door, it match cuts to her opening the door from inside the room. This was also a POV shot from Forida. We used a over the shoulder shot, to convey that Julekha has power within the two as the is looking down at Forida, from Forida’s face we can also see this. We experimented with tilts and close up’s within our clip, to see the effect. Also, we use two shots, to capture the two within the frame, this is when Julekha gets up to leave. In order to see Forida’s reaction to the ‘news’ we changed the shot and storyboard slightly so that we could hear and see the reaction better, this was expressed at the end we then used a MS and zoom which we timed perfected to when Forida looks up. We then went to edit the raw footage on Final Cut Pro. We used the in and out points mostly which helped us, piece together our shots better, rather than using the razor tool all the time. This saved time when editing, we used most of the skills that we had learnt and applied them to the editing. However when we edited, we found that the lighting within the room, made the clip look inconstant, and some of the action that Forida did, didn’t always match the shot of her after. This was an extremely useful exercise as it allowed to us explore different shot types and to use dialogue, to see the effect.


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