PPE Productions

Hi and welcome to our new blog from PPE Productions. It stands for Purple People Eater Productions. In our blog we will document and record our progress as we work through our media studies coursework creating the opening sequence of a fiction film. So far we have filmed a preliminary exercise in which we familiarised ourselves with the process of generating ideas, storyboarding, planning, filming and editing a piece of film. The brief we were given was to film a short sequence in which someone comes into a room, sits down opposite another person and exchanges a few lines of dialogue, and within this we had to include shot/reverse shot, match on action, an eyeline match and demonstrate the 180 degree rule. Our film showed Olivia entering a room, being told by Tom to take a seat, watching a short dance, and then beginning an interview. Shot Types- We started with a shot of Tom through some banisters, in order to give a voyeuristic and more involved feeling. This then cut to an over the shoulder/ tracking shot of Olivia as she entered the room. As she sat, we used a low angle shot of Tom and he began to dance. We used the match on action as we cut to a different angle of the dance. We used an eyeline match as Olivia watched him, and then we used a birds eye view as Tom finished his dance and sat down. We then used shot reverse shot as the two exchange brief lines of dialogue. Sound- The sound we used was largely diegetic, and because of the place we used to film there was a little background noise, but this was to be expected and we would make sure to avoid this when filming our main coursework piece. We used one piece of non-diegetic sound- the song "Lets get it on" is played over Tom's dance to add humour to the scene. Editing- We used very simple transitions to add realism and so as not to detract from what is happening on screen. We are particularly pleased with the accuracy and timing of the match on action, as we felt this was successful. We also used simple titles- the title, "The Interview", is in sophisticated handwriting style font, which lulls the audience into a false sense of security- the seemingly formal titles suggests a more serious film and therefore makes the comedic aspects unexpected.