Match Cut Prelim

My group and I performed the 'match cut preliminary exercise' and in my opinion, it went very well. The criteria for this exercise required us to film someone opening and closing a door and two people exchanging dialogue in a shot-reverse-shot conversation; the filming also had to contain at least one match cut shot and we weren't allowed to break the '180 degree rule'.
We spent about fifteen to twenty-five minutes devising a story board that consisted of different shots that would enable us to complete the task. We tried to include as many different shots as we could to make our filming look diverse (shot-wise) and not too boring. We included close-ups, extreme close-ups, medium close-ups, over the shoulder shots, low angle shots and a long shot. We also used a shot where we placed the camera on the ground in order to capture one of my group member's moving feet, which was very effective and also looked very professional!
The match cut shot takes place when my group member opens the door and enters with apparent fluidity. One thing that we could have done to make the entire piece look better was to film another match cut taking place towards the end of the clip, when the two people leave the room.
Despite most of our exercise being a success, we did break the 180 degree rule during the shot-reverse-shot conversation. This may seem like a set-back but it actually turned out to be quite helpful to us as a group, as by making this mistake, we realised how to obey the 180 degree rule properly; when we watched our filming back, we saw how breaking this rule effected how the piece turned out. We knew that we wouldn't be able to make this mistake in our thriller opening.
During our editing, we cut out bits that didn't quite fit into the what we wanted as the finished piece. This was a very helpful exercise as it really made us analyse which bits worked with the criteria that was provided.
All in all, I think that our match cut preliminary exercise went very well but there are always improvements to be made and we have definitely taken that into account. This exercise saw to my group really pulling together and implementing different ideas as a team. We shared the work evenly and the end product was something that we were all quite proud of!
By Sabrina Chowdhury