Ollie Musto on Gangs - Prelim task

Above is my Prelim task for As level media. The initial idea for the task was inspired by documentary style films made by people such as Ross Kemp. The Camera follows Ollie Musto (OM) who is interviewing two Russian mobsters; we tried to blend a traditional documentary style of filming with some more unconventional shots, the most succesful of which was, in my opinion, the shot with all three characters in shot and OM framed between them.



I feel that as a whole, the film was not very successful in terms of framing and narrative arcs; this was mainly due to the fact that we had a very limited time to create the film and an extremely limited choice of locations to film in. We ended up in the drama studio of our school which made it difficult to create the illusion of a gang controlled area. During the film we were tasked to display three continuity editing techniques:-Match on Action
-Shot reverse-shot
-180 degree rule
We displayed all of these techniques in our film, but the editing seemed rushed and choppy and the framing of the shots and lighting weren't given much thought due to this being our first film. In future films we will give these aspects more thought, hopefully creating a better overall feel that will seem less amateur.

Overall, our film does not truly reflect the abilities of the film makers. The planning process needed to be showcased and thought out, rather than improvising most of it on the day. We achieved our target of displaying the three continuity editng techniques, but the film around them was rushed and experimental, and that feeling comes across very strongly. In the future I hope to eliminate these problems and produce an altogether more proffessional film.