HW 3a - Continuity task evaluation (BLK)

26/9/16 Continuity Task

1: The story of this sequence is simple; two school boys are walking towards each other down two paths towards, both of them pre-occupied; one of them is reading a paper (me), the other is on his phone (Emilio). Not seeing each other, they meet at the corner and bump into one another, causing the boy with the paper to drop his book.

2: To create narrative flow:

• We did not break the 180 degree rule; the camera never crossed the invisible line that joined the two characterises they walked towards each other. This meant that the perspective of the camera was always showing Emilio walking from left to right and me walking from right to left, so the audience is always aware of the characters' direction.
• Where there were two consecutive shots showing the same character, we made sure that the character landed on the opposite foot to the one they landed on in the previous shot to maintain a sense of continued movement.
• The actors began walking before the shot started to avoid the characters stopping and starting between shots, therefore maintaining the continuity of movement. 
• We made sure we had match-on action, so that the content of each shot matched exactly with the last (e.g. the props that the characters' were holding were in the same hand for each shot). 
• [similarly] We kept the character's moving for every shot, even if they were not present in the shot. This meant that the characters were where they would logically be in the narrative, and by process of ellipsis, the audience can identify that the characters were still walking between shots. 

3: I think we achieved full continuity for the most part of this task. There was continued movement between shots, the perspective of the camera made it clear to the audience that the character's were walking towards a collision and I think that we achieved match-on action by keeping the props identically positioned in all the shots. 

4: To improve the narrative flow:

• We could've avoided a lull in action at the beginning of shot 2 by beginning the shot with my character in the frame. This would improve the continuity of movement in this sequence and avoid the audience having to stare at an empty frame of a brick wall.
• We could've cut shot 4 a little sooner before we see the characters slowing in pace, so the speed of their movement would be continuous.