Practice Paragraph - 1A

For both of my Foundation Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio we used Celtx for writing the script which is a professional screenwriting program used by professionals and independent writers, in the second year we decided to have our short film resolve around dialogue which meant that we attempted to create meaning through spoken humour. I used a Cannon 550D to film my psychological thriller film opening and my romantic comedy short film. In the first year I experimented more with framing than in the second year as in my second year planning stage I created a storyboard which I followed when filming my short film. Also I was more aware of how different lenses can impact the image and because of the proliferation of digital DSLR cameras I was able to use them for specific effects which contributed to the overall aesthetics of the production.  I was more confident about shooting the film in the second year than in the first because back then I worked in a bigger group which meant that I had less contact with the technology we used while because of the smaller group size in the second year I was sharing the responsibility for filming with my partner. We used multiple cameras which resulted in being able to capture the same scene but from different angles at the same time which meant that creatively we strived to capture the exact action that we written down in the script. In comparison in the first year we had to compromise on the overall creativity as we had only one camera to use which meant that we had less shots from which to choose in the editing process. We edited ‘She’s Not There’ and ‘Dating 101’ on Final Cut Pro which allowed us the flexibility of editing as we were still filming however the timeline allows you add shots in the middle of editing. I was more experienced in seamless editing by the time of our second project and through my research I was aware of the filming and editing guidelines we should not break such as 180-degree rules, 30-degree rule, the rule of thirds and continuity editing until there was a clear creative decision behind the choice of breaking that rule which impacted the meaning.