Shooting a Dialogue Sequence Workshop

Shooting a Dialogue Sequence Workshop

Our media class participated in a two-part workshop where shot a small sequence involving dialogue and then edited the sequence using various editing techniques.

Shooting the dialogue

We were randomly split into groups and then told to film a simple short sequence that included dialogue and followed all the rules and advice we were given from previous workshops and what we had learned through the course so far. My group shot a sequence where there was a
man brooming who was complaining to his employer about his job.

When shooting we had to remember how to use all the camera equipment and the rules put into practice when filming, this included making sure we only filmed in a 180 degree radius, used camera composition work, focused the camera, kept continuity intact when reshooting sections and even small things such as bobbling the tripod for the camera.

One main issue we ran into was composing and filming the best shots, we found it
difficult to find really great and interesting angles to shoot with due to the movement of the scene taking place in a strange way that moved places and just was very stilted from the perspective of the camera; we didn't make great use of the space available which made this especially difficult for us. Therefore we ended up with some really strange angles that did not highlight the important parts of the scene and clearly didn't look to have any important connotations behind them. Another problem was that our group didn't put enough thought into the composition of each shot and we didn't put into
practice the rules of humans read things left to right, instead most shots had the subject placed in the middle of the frame. 

To avoid these mistakes we really should have planned ahead and not worried about the timing constraints of one hour because we finished a little bit early anyway. Working together collaboratively more would have helped as this would have enabled us to share more ideas and maybe we wouldn't have missed the key elements of camera composition which really did make our shoot appear less professional when we tried to edit. Upon further reflection when comparing are shoot in the editing suite to the other groups we discovered the white balance on our cameras was completely wrong and so every single shot we took looked dark and orange which made details hard to spot and really ruined any kind of merit the scene had left. 

Next time when my actual production group shoot our opening sequence most of these issues can be easily fixed; the white balance by just tweaking the preset on the camera interface and for the  camera angles and composition we have already planned in our group.

Editing the Dialogue Sequence

After a couple of weeks had passed we then returned to the editing suite where we then in our groups edited the mini dialogue sequence that we shot.

When editing we had to edit in a variety of different ways so that we were exposed to more editing techniques that we could use when we come to edit the real sequences. Throughout the workshop we had to put into practice what we had learned from the previous workshop such as how to cut and trim video as well as build upon our editing skills by using sound to direct the edit and using to different reaction shots of a character who is listing to the character speaking.

In addition to discovering the lack of white balance we discovered that we could have let the camera roll for longer before 'action' and after 'cut' which would give us more reaction shots to work with and improve the crossfade (when editing) of the sound. This however can be fixed by just giving more time in between each command by the director when shooting. We did follow the 180 degree rule but we did not make it easy for ourselves since as mentioned previously that in the scene the movement/action flowed in strange way which made it hard to follow and keep up with.

When editing the actual sequence we will definitely put into practice the crossfade tool where we can face audio in and out so it will sound cohesive and therefore the cuts will appear slick and smooth, not feeling stilted and odd.

Below is the video that Meadow and I edited of the Dialogue sequence we shot. The first section of the video shows the sequence that has cuts after each sound bite and the 2nd part shows a small section of the sequence that focuses in on reaction shots.