Notes for AS students on continuity piece.

It is essential that you get into the habit of writing up any practical coursework that you do on the blogs.

This will save you a great deal of time and heartache later. What you don't want is to have to write up about 40 blog posts in the last week before the work has to be submitted. At whihc time you will also have to answer 7 specific questions evaluating the success (or otherwise) of your finished foundation piece.

Below are some pointers for how to approach your practical work and writing it up on the blog.

There are 4 different areas to consider:

Research

Planning

Execution (creating your media product)

Evaluation.

Evaluation comes when everything else is finished and will be dealt with then.

The preliminary task is a good opportunity to start forming good habits in your approach to the work.

The coninuity piece is a straightforward demonstration of whether or not you grasp the basics of filming and editing.

Research for this may have included identifying which shots, in combination, typically make up the creation of a simple scene. You could have researched this by literally watching any film, tv drama or soap opera. The idea is that you quickly realise that you have already internalised the fundamentals of fimmaking because you have been watching (critically) since before you could speak.

You could also (as one group did) take snap shots of the typical shots used for a scene.

Planning would involve, amongst other things, creating a shot list, storyboard, choosing an appropriate location, choosing an appropriate subject. All these areas should be covered in your blog write up. If you have not done so you are already forming bad habits. If you do not take all these aspects (and more) into account, you will definitely come unstuck when creating you main project.

When writing your evaluation of the successful execution or otherwise of the continuity piece, I suggest you also link to the edit where you break the 180 degree rule, identify this as a problem, and explain that you learned how important this rule was by the act of creating for yourselves. Also note the nature of the audio track. There are obviously jarring continuity errors there. YOU should note this and state how you might do it differently again. eg. not film in a location where there will be a constant and changing level of noise - outside the 6th form study area.

Execution: undoubtedly many problems will have come to light in both the filming and editing and you must be able to identify these and explain what you have learned and how your approach will change. consider issues of sound continuity (even if the pictures work well), the subject is wearing different clothes, so you were unable to shot - who was in charge of that aspect of planning? There are so many variables when shooting a film that if your organistaional skills are not finely tuned, you will create myriad small problems which will ultimately prevent you successfully achieving your film.

TAKE THE SMALL STUFF SERIOUSLY AND THE BIG STUFF WILL LOOK AFTER ITSELF