Homeland Continuity Task

1. What was your role in the task and what did you actually do?
I was an actor, playing the role of an Iranian ambassodor under interrogation. I had to learn my lines, and then play the role of the ambassodor in the shoot. I had to do this role somewhat convincingly, so the shoot ressembled a Homeland interrogation to an extent.


2. What factors did you have to take into account when planning, filming and editing?
We had to base our plotline around the brief, which stated that we required two people to enter a room, with one suspect sitting at a table. We had to try several practice takes, moving around tables, trying different lines of dialogue and incoperating different themes, in order to give our story a Homeland-esque feel. During filming, we tried different angles of shots, rehearsing the entire script at these different angles, in order to give people different types of shots to work with during editing. Finally, during editing, their were a number of things we had to take into consideration, in order to make the edit make sense. A large problem was the transtion between shots, and creating a linear flow; for example, opening and closing a door across two differents shots was difficult to edit, as the door couldn't look like it jumped from one position to another across shots.


3. How successful was your sequence? Did you manage to demonstrate match-on-action, shot-reverse-shot and the 180 degree rule? Did you achieve continuity overall?
I feel that we were, as a group, able to maintain the 180 degree rule, with a wide variety of shot types, allowing us to create a linear sequence, demonstrating both shot-reverse-shot and match-on-action, with different props and costumes taken into consideration, to create continuity within the sequence.


4. What have you learnt from completing this task?
I have learnt that the smallest details during planning affect filming for the better or worse, which in turn have massive effects on the edit. It is therefore important to pay close attention to detail throughout each stage, as these features could hinder/aid you later on.