Continuity Practical Task 1: 'My Property'

1. Explain the story of your video.

The plot of the video is that V (the girl) is angry at her friend Ben (the boy in the first shot) as he is being antisocial and ignoring her for his phone. Their friend Kush (the boy that sits with them) decides to fix this problem by stealing Ben’s phone and running off with it, however, in his rush, Kush runs into a pole and Ben takes back his phone.

2. How did you attempt to create 'narrative flow' (continuity)?

We attempted to create narrative flow in several ways. The first was to have relevant shots that were linked with the characters actions. For example, the link from shot 2 to 3 where Kush is running, we tried to cut it to avoid a jump or a lag in action. We also made sure that the changes in shot types weren’t extreme, such as going from a long shot to an extreme close up, this is seen in shot 1 to shot 2 where we zoom into the characters after creating an establishing shot for the audience to have spacial awareness.

3. Did you achieve full continuity? If not, why not?

We didn’t achieve full continuity as our editing was done directly with the camera and without editing software. This made it hard for us to have our shots as closely knit together as we would like due to a delay in action at the beginning or a delay in cut at the end. This is evident in the delay from shot 4 to shot 5 in Kush and the change in his speed. These delays are fixed in the edited version however there were also some acting errors that we couldn’t fix. These were things such as shot 1 ending with V looking at Ben but then shot 2 starting with her looking at Kush or Kush running towards the left side of the pole in shot 4 but then crashing and falling on the right side of the pole in shot 5.

4. In hindsight, what would you do differently to improve the narrative flow of your video and tell your story more effectively?

In hindsight, I think that having an extra shot of V or more dialogue from her would be effective as it would allow the audience to connect and feel for her and therefore understand the reasoning behind Kush’s action better. Additionally, showing a shot of Ben getting up would be important for continuity and could also show Ben’s fire in wanting his phone back allowing the phrase ‘my property!’ at the end to be more impactful.