Analysis of practical pre-lim tasks.

Our first pre-lim task was named 'The Dream' the aim of the practical task was to represent continuity through filming, hence using doors to open and close in the footage. It begins with the actor trying to work but he cannot concentrate and falls into a dream-like state. The film shows him walking until he pushes someone and finds and unexpected visitor.
Continuity of our task is presented as the camera movement flows consistently as the actor walks out of his study, down the corridoor and through the door into a darkened room smoothly. The camera work was not jerky or shaky so we did a good job there. However, we did have a problem with lighting for the final shot in the dark room with the unexpected visitor, so we had to film from a different angle, so we could open a door to allow there to be more light in the scene so that the actors were visibale, and this made the footage shot more effective.

For our second prelim task we decided to add more mise-en-scene to the task, throught the use of props. The props we used was- masks, a plastic gun, chairs and for costume one actor wore a cloak. This added more mystery and detail to our practical task. Again the task was focusing on continuity. This time we had to actors involved and the opening scene starts with a cloaked, masked, mysterious looking character walking down a corridoor at pace. The camera follows smoothly as the cloaked man gets to a door, opens it and enters the room. Inside the room he meets another masked character at the desk. The room was set up messy and chairs were turned over, to convey an idea that something dangerous has happened and to convey an idea of equilibrium, that a normal environment has changed due to different and unusual events.
The two masked characters go into conflict arguing and then both fighting over a gun. The cloaked character shoots the other masked character and the film ends.
Again the camera work was good and consistent, apart from in one scene one of the actors tripped over a chair and so that had to be edited out, leaving a bit of a gap in that scene of the cloaked man walking towards the other masked character. That was the only fault for continuity.

Overall, we have learnt that using more mise-en-scene will make your film more interesting and effective. We also learnt the importance of continuity, and lighting and we will refer to this and be aware of this and more in the future when completing practical tasks.