Preliminary task

Last week we started planning and filming our preliminary task. It had to involve a person opening a door, crossing a room and sitting opposite another person where they then had to exchange a few lines of dialogue. For ours we decided to film two people sitting across from each other in a dark and dimly lit room. We would then have it so it seems that they were exchanging drugs, but then you would see that the person who collects the 'drugs' has a shopping list and what they actually exchanged was flour. We also had to demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule in our preliminary task.
Match on action is an editing technique where you cut from one shot to another that matches the first shots action.
Shot/reverse shot is where you film one character looking at the other and then the other character looking back at the first.
The 180-degree rule when two characters in a scene have the same left/right relationship to one another.

How did it go?

Plot
We came up with the plot of our film quite easily. We knew that we wanted to do a drug deal and make it look really dark and mysterious. After that we came up with the idea to make it only look like a drug deal but to actually have the substance being dealt be flour so that it made our clip more comedic for the audience and different from other peoples tasks. Our idea was that the person with the money would be walking down to this boiler room and would go to the 'drug dealer'. They would then talk a little before exchanging the money for the 'drugs' before pulling out a shopping list and crossing off flour so people knew that it was only flour being bought.  
Location
When we were coming up with the location to film our short clip we first came up with the idea of using the old dark room at school. We were declined using it though because it was small and there were broken tiles and things in there which meant it would've been dangerous for us to film there. We were then told about the boiler room that was much bigger that we could potentially use to film in, and so after looking around there to see if it was okay we decided to use it for our short clip. We chose this location because we thought it would make the perfect setting for our drug deal because of how dark it was down there. This meant that it gave the place a really doggy atmosphere which is what we wanted for our short clip. The ground in the boiler room was very muddy and there was vegetation growing out in certain places that gave the room the kind of atmosphere that we wanted for our film.
Cast
When we were coming up for people to be in our clip we focused on people that where free during both lessons in case we over ran in the first lesson and needed to film in the second. We also tried to find people who either did drama in GCSE or for A-Level as they would be able to act out the character's better than someone who didn't do drama. We managed to get Liz and Erin to be in our short clip and they were quite happy to do it and did an excellent job. They managed to portray mystery in their characters and show a sense of caution that we wanted the characters to have.
Props
For our film we also decided to use different props like money for the drug deal, a little zip bag containing flour and a shopping list so at the end of the clip people understood that it wasn't a drug deal but actually just one person buying flour off another. We managed to make some rolled up money using rolled up newspaper and then just wrapping one twenty pond note round the outside. This made the illusion that there was a lot of money there when in fact there was only little. We also brought in dark hoodies and jumpers for our cast members to wear to make them look shadier and more like a drug dealers. we also had a brown paper bag that the money was kept in so in the film we would pull out the money from the bag and then it would we exchanged for the 'drugs'.
Equipment

Using the equipment for the first time was interesting. We were using cameras and tripods that we had never handled before but we managed to get the hang of it. Our teacher showed us briefly how to use the camera and the tripod that we had been given. He also gave us advice like not to zoom in on the camera if we wanted a close up shot but to instead move the camera closer to the person. Using the equipment became quite easy after we got use to how it all worked, though because of where we chose to film out clip, the ground was very muddy and it made using the equipment in there quite challenging as it was very slippery but we managed to do okay.

What would you change/do better if you had the chance to do the task again?
If I had the chance to do this task again I would probably try and be a little more involved in the actual filming of our short clip. I was quiet nervous to use the camera in case I broke it or managed to mess up the filming so I stepped back when it came to the filming and let the other people in my group do it. Apart from that I am pretty happy with how our film is coming along. We all came up with the plot together and worked together on finding the right people to cast and the right location to film it in.