Making of our Preliminary Task: What Happens?

For our preliminary task we had to film a short clip that had to include dialogue and a range of camera shots. E.g. High angle shot, Low angle shot, Over the shoulder shot etc.

We decided to have two people having an awkward encounter. We encountered several problems whilst filming, including the fact that a nasty bug was going around, resulting in one of us being absent every time one of us wanted to film, and that we wanted to plan it down to the very last detail.

Eventually, we chose to shoot it at one of our homes, as this would give a different setting.

Preliminary Task Outline:

1. Abbie walks through door.
2. Abbie closes door.
3. Abbie sits down at the table, faces forward.
4. I look at abbie, close the book, and then fold my arms whilst staring at her.
5. We then simultaneously place both our hands in front of us at the table.
6. Abbie says: 'So.'
7. I say: 'So.'
8. We both look around the room, looking for a solution to the situation.
9. We have a close up of Abbies eyes staring at mine.
10. A close up of my eyes staring at Abbie's.
11. Repeat of the last two actions, but with the camera zoomed in even more.
12. I say: 'I'm just gonna go.' whilst gesturing to leave, and getting up and leaving the table.
13. I leave the room.
14. We have several shots of Abbie slamming her head on the table.
15. Camera fades to black.
16. Camera fades into a new scene, the light is darker, showing a time lapse.
17. Abbie's head still rests on the table.
18. I enter, pick up my book, and say: 'I forgot my book.' and then leave again.

Over the course of filming, we built up a very lengthy set of outtakes, as both people behind and in front of the camera were laughing. We shot a lot of the same things at different angles, so that when we were editing we had a range of things to choose from.