Monday, 16 February 2009

Diary of Filming Day

We all arrived at our location on the day of filming. We had previously decided that we were going to try and film everything on one day so had created a schedule to follow. This schedule stated in what order we were going to film our shots which would give us some stability and help us with our time management. The first thing we did was split into two groups to get things done more quickly and efficiently. Two people were in charge or organizing the set and preparing the pros and two people were in charge of setting up the camera and talking to out actors about what they would have to do in each scene. This really helped us as a group and I feel was a time when we shoed good teamwork. If I were to do this project again I would definitely use this method again. Once we had fully set up we started filming our first shots of the outside scenes. Unfortunately our male actor had to leave by a certain time so we were unable to shoot the outside scenes later on in the day when it was dark, however we pulled through and filmed some good shots from different angles. We then moved onto the inside shots and the dialogue between the father and daughter. This was filmed in the dining room to make it look like she had been doing her homework before he walked in. After these were complete we started to work on the door slam scene. This caused us some difficulties as we found it hard to get the timing perfect. We ended up having to keep doing shot after shot to keep it continuous. Once we had mastered that we started to focus on the upstairs scenes. This is when we encountered our biggest problem, the lighting. We found that in our main bedroom where the most important scenes were going to be filmed, the light was incredibly dim. We tried every avenue we could think of to try and generate some more light in the shots. After lots of effort and little change, we decided we going to have to just film the shots and hopefully change the lighting during the editing stages. Another problem we faced was filming the close up of the pictures. This was because we were either zooming in too fast too quickly or not zooming in enough. We found a way to sort this out was to do a couple of practice shots until we got a feel for the camera and how fast and far we wanted to zoom in. This really helped us and in the end we were able to get some good shots. Finally we moved onto our last shot in the computer room where the daughter is typing the name into google. I decided to add an extra touch by putting the chosen picture next to the screen and we felt like this really added to the shot.

When decided who did what shot we decided to play to each others strengths and make sure it was even so that one person was not doing all the filming and the others were just standing around. I also came up with the idea that if u were not filming a shot you would go set up and think about the next shot to save time and make sure we were working efficiently. This worked very well as we ended up finishing on time and we could move from shot to shot fluidly. Overall the filming day went very well and I feel that we worked well as a team. However, if I did the project again I would check the location for vital factors like lighting to make sure that we come prepared for all problems that we could face.

Shanice x

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