Shooting on location - Day 6

13/12/2014

Location: Izzy Stirks house
Actors required: David Twohey, Ruth Kearsey, Sophie Wells, Izzy Stirk & Jake Bennet
Crew Members: Robbie Gale, Tilly Whitehouse & Dan Vidmar
Time: 6:00pm - 8:30pm
Scene: 3
Shots: 22- 25
Props: Vodka bottle & Masks

 

 

 

 

6:15pm: When all of the crew and the cast had arrived we got the actors into there costumes, put them into their correct positions around the house and then began to shoot. Our first shot was shot 22,  this was an interior hand held shot set at a party. The shot continues through the hall way following one of the masked characters who is holding a vodka bottle. The shot finished coming out of the hallway leading into the dining room where we see Hermit and 2 of his friends dancing. This was one of the longest shots which we have in in film so we did have to shoot it several times to make sure that we got our desired shot. One of the problems which we had was following the masked character at the same pace. Also we had to give the actors advice for what they could do when the focus was on them as some of them didn't know what to do. We finally got the shot we wanted after numerous attempts as we gave all the actors direction so they knew what to do when the focus was on them.

7:00pm: When we had finished doing shot 22 we then began shot 23 which was all of the characters at the party playing spin the bottle. Initially we used a mid shot to identify the bottle and what the characters were doing. We then used a 360 degree shot that shown all of the characters playing the game as it panned around all of them in a full circle. To execute this shot we set the tripod up in the middle of the circle of characters (the crew members was not in the room for this shot). Then each of the cast members helped rotate the camera around in order to get the full 360 degree effect. We repeated this shot numerous times as it was difficult to achieve. But eventually we did manage to achieve what we wanted.

7:25pm: Shot 24 was mid shot of Hermit sat in the circle with the bottle top facing him. Hermit was sat next to a female mask whom he has to kiss as a result of the bottle landing on him. This was a simple shot to excite which didn't take long to do. We had to give Hermit advice on what expression and gestures he should perform when he realises the bottle has landed on him. Once he knew what to do we accomplished the shot in know time, we did shoot it a few times just so we had a choice of which shot we preferred.

7:35pm: The final shot of this scene was a mid shot of Hermit kissing the female mask. In the background you can see the other masks reactions. This wasn't a hard shot at all to pull of, once the awkwardness of the actors having to kiss was out of the way we completed the shot easy enough.

Evaluation of the day:

Overall I thought that we worked extremely hard as a team to execute our desired shots. Although some of the shots were challenging to execute, we carried on attempting them until we did.

Shooting On location - Day 5

11/12/2014

Location: Theatre
Actors Required: David Twohey, Ruth Kearsey, Izzy Stirk, Jake Bennett, Kerry Kalia, Alex Thurston, Sophie Wells, Jack Brookes, Fran Perry
Crew Members: Daniel Vidmar, Robbie Gale, Tilly Whitehouse
Time: 3:30-4:30pm
Scene: 2
Storyboard: Shot 13
Props: Masks, Pop-corn

Review of the Day

3:30 - We quickly set up the tracking dolly and all the actors got into their costumes, put their masks on and we spent 10 mins explaining to them their emotion and what we want them to do in the scene.

3:40 - We then had a problem due to the lighting, we wanted it to appear as if the characters were in a cinema, but we couldn't get the right lighting because it was either too bright or too dark. This became a big problem, so we had to get the technician who helped us find the right lighting. When we found the right lighting we shot scene a few times. It was a simple shot but we tried it over and over so we could get the best outcome. 

4:10 - We realised we wanted the lighting to appear as if they were watching a film, so we got out the LED light and the reflector and reflected the flickering light onto the reflector which reflected on to the actors faces. We tried this many times in different ways so we would get the best outcome. 

4:20 - All the actors apart from Hermit then left. Then we shot the same scene again, but with Hermit on his own. This was easier because we didn't have to rely on that many people and we had got used to the lighting and the camera work.

Evaluation of the day
Today's shooting went really well. We were very strict on time because the actors had places to be, and we had to be out the theatre by 4:30 so we wanted to get everything finished in time. This was fine until the problem with the lights came and we lost a lot of time sorting the problem out, but when the problem was sorted we got plenty of shots and we are very pleased with the outcome of the day. 

Shooting On Location - Day 4

9/12/2014

Location: Year 9 Area
Actors Required: David Twohey, Ruth Kearsey, Izzy Stirk, Jake Bennett
Crew Members: Daniel Vidmar, Robbie Gale, Tilly Whitehouse
Time: 3:30-5:30pm
Scene: 7
Storyboard: Shot 26-29
Props: Masks

Review of the Day

3:30: - We set up the tracking dolly as all the actors got into their costumes and sorted out their costumes and we spoke to the actors and described what they will be doing in each scene. 

Shooting on Location - Day 3

8/11/2014

Location: Robbie' house
Actors Required: David Twohey & Ruth Kearsey
Crew Members: Robbie Gale, Daniel Vidmar & Tilly Whitehouse
Time: 10:00am - 12:00pm
Scene: Scene 1
Shots: 1 - 12
Props: Masks

Review of the day:

 

 

 

 

 

 

10:00am: Once all the actors had arrived we immediately began setting up the equipment so that we could begin shooting, doing each shot in chronological order. Our first shot required David (hermit) waking up in bed. Accomplishing this was easy enough even though we shot it a few times just so we had options to chose from.

10:15am: Our second shot was a mid shot of Hermit putting his slippers on. Only Davids feet and slippers where required for this shot. Again, pulling off this shot was easy enough once we directed David how to put his feet into his slippers most effective way.

10:25am: Shot three was of Hermit standing up and stretching. We did have a small problem when doing this shot as the natural light coming through the windows was making the shot particularly bright. The solution to our problem was reducing the ISO on the camera as this decreased the amount of light in the shot making the brightness match with the previous shots.

10:40am: After we have conquered shot 3, we then began shooting shot 4 which was a close up of Hermit walking down stairs. We set the tripod up at the bottom of the stairs and made sure that it was equally balanced so that the shot wasn't slanted. When we had done this we filmed the shot a few times so each member of the group could have a go at filming and to make sure that we had enough shots that could be used.

10:55am: Our next shot was a close up of cereal been poured into a bowl for Hermits breakfast. Even though this sounds simple enough we had to shoot it a couple of times so that the cereal fallen out of the box fluently. As previous attempts of this shot had individual pieces of cereal missing the bowl and not coming out go the cereal box.

11:10am: Shot six was another close up of Hermit walking back up stairs. Once we had positioned the tripod correctly we got this shot done rather quickly. But just for security we did take a few shots of it to make sure we had options incase there was problems with some of the shots.

11:17am: Shot seven was a mid shot of Hermits wardrobe showing the selection of clothed which he could choose from. We used our first shot for this shot as it didn't require any more time being spent on it.

11:20am: We then moved on to shot eight which was of Hermit buttoning up his shirt. Once the tripod was at the appropriate height we done the shot with no difficulty.

11:30am: Our ninth shot was a mid shot of Hermit putting his trousers on. We had to film this shot a few times as we had problems getting the tilt right and making it the right pace. But after a couple of attempts we finally got our shot.

11:40am: Shot 10 was a close up of hermit lacing up his shoes. This was a quick shot to imply that he was ready and about to go out. We completed this shot easy enough.

11:50am: Shot 11 was an exterior shot that was meant to be a tracking shot going backwards away from Hermits front door, however Robbie's drive was quite narrow so we decided a tracking shot would be pointless. In the end the shot turned into a mid shot of Hermit walking out of the door, pulling it to but not fully, looking at his watch to imply was he was in a rush, walking off and then having to come back to shut the door properly. We had to shoot this this shot a few times because of the ISO being to high and because our actor needed some direction. In the end after a few attempts we captured our desired shot.


Evaluation of Day: On the whole, the day was successful as there was barely any problems and the little problems that there was we came up with effective solutions. Also as a group we all worked well and filmed the shots quicker than we expected to.

Shooting on location - Day 2

4/12/2014

Location: Drama Studio
Actors Required: David Twohey, Jake Bennett
Crew Members: Daniel Vidmar, Robbie Gale, Tilly Whitehouse
Time: 3.30pm - 6.00pm
Scene: 10
Storyboard: Shot 31-34
Props: Calm Mask


Review of the Day
3.30: - The crew set up all the equipment and the actors arrived and got changed into their costume. We set up the tracking dolly and spoke to the actors on how we want them to act in this scene.

3.50: - We then attempted the Vertigo Shot. It took us a long time to get used to the attempting this shot. We had to push the tracking dolly forward as we focused the camera. We attempted only one of us at a time trying to do this, but it was proven unsuccessful. So we tried one of us pushing the camera, and the other focusing. This was just as difficult but after many attempts we got used to it and got a few shots that were OK. 
The problems we faced: 

• Getting the focus and track the same speed - We tried over and over again doing it at different speeds.
• Not moving the camera down as we focused it - Focusing the camera with different hands or in different ways. 
• The lighting was too bright - Turning the ISO down.
• Shadows from the camera equipment - Blocking some of the lights in the drama studio.

Evaluation of Vertigo shot:

5:10: - We then used a the tracking dolly to track forward and tilted up as the two actors walked into the middle. This took many attempts because it was difficult to get the actors exactly where we wanted them at the exact same time. Also, the actor with the mask on couldn't see the floor where we marked where they stood so it was difficult for him to stand where he wanted to go. 

5:20: - We then did the two over the shoulder shots of Hermit, and then the Mask. This was            one of the easiest shots we did. We wanted to put focus on the face and then the shoulder to be out of focus. The only problem that we were faced with was the lighting differences and getting Dave and Jake to be in the same place.

5:40: - We then did the final two shot. This is where Hermit has to be filmed twice in different clothes and then we will later edit them and put them together. We set up the camera and filmed the first shot. We used Daniel to be the other side of Dave so he had someone to make eye contact with, so when we put the other clips together it will look like Dave is looking at himself.

After we finished the first shot where Dave is dressed as the calm mask, he quickly got changed back into Hermit and we filmed him again the same as the other shot but this time  him and Daniel swapped sides. We had to make sure that the camera didn't move at all because else this could impact us massively in the editing process.

Evaluation of Day:

The filming overall went really well, and if we come back to the editing stage and we do not have a good shot we shot 'back-up' shots that are just simple versions of the shots we were going to create that we would use at a last resort if needed. The vertigo shot was the most difficult and time consuming shot we had, it took us many attempts to get it right, we tried with one person, two people and both were as equally hard. It was hard to get the zoom and track exactly the same time, and for the zoom to be smooth. Also we had many problems with the lighting being too bright, which we did resolve by blocking the two out of four lights in the drama studio by Robbie holding paper against them as we filmed. But we took a back up shot of just a tracking forward incase none of the vertigo shots were successful. The other shots were simple and didn't take up too much time, but we filmed many of them again and again so in the editing stage we had a variety to choose from. The actors had to change costume and in one of the shots we nearly filmed without realising Dave was wearing a watch and Jake wasn't when they were suppose to be the same person, this would of been a big continuity which could of lost us some final marks in the end product. The lighting was a big problem in the drama studio as some of the lights were not working, so we had to work around this problem which we did work around in the end. So overall todays filming went well and we created some really good shots.

Shooting on location - Day 1

Production has now begun so the next following posts will be an evaluation of each day of shooting and photos to show the progress throughout the day.

29/11/2014

Location: Stepping Stones
Actors Required: David Twohey, Ruth Kearsey, Tina Vidmar
Crew Members: Daniel Vidmar, Robbie Gale, Tilly Whitehouse
Time: 9am - 3pm
Scene: 7
Storyboard: Shot 40
Props: N/A


Review of the Day

9:00am - All of the crew members and actors arrived on set and begun to set up the equipment for the first shot. While Daniel and Robbie did this, Tilly prepared the actors on what they have to do in each shot. This was vital as most of our film will have no dialougue so we are heavily relied on the actor's facial expressions as this will create more of a emotive experience for our target audience.

9:30am - We begun to film the first shot of the day. This includes a tilt shot of David Twohey (Hermit) sitting on the bench. While this shot wasn't very difficult to perform, we needed to make sure that the camera wouldn't shake while tilting the camera. Each member took turns on creating this shot and once we got a shot that we all agreed was the best one, we did this same shot a few more times so when it comes to editing, we can see which shot is the best.

10:30am - The next shot involves a tracking shot of Tina (the citizen) walking while talking on the phone in an aggressive tone. This took a lot of preparation as this part was unscripted therefore a lot of improvisaltion had to be done in order to get the effect that we want. While filming this shot, we had to stop the shot a few times as either the actress forgot some of her lines or there were citizens walking by during filming as this location is a public park. Eventually we got the shot that we wanted and like the first shot, we filmed a lot more shots after to ensure the right shot is made for editing.

11:30am - Afterwards, we performed the shot with David reacting to Tina walking while on the phone. This shot was simple to perform as we didn't need to move the camera and it was just David's reaction to Tina walking therefore it only took around 30 minutes to shoot.

12:30pm - The next shot was the pan shot of Tina with Ruth Kearsey (angry emotion) following her while David watches them. This shot was quite difficult to perfect as either the actresses was too fast when walking or we were too slow when trying to follow them. Eventually we perfected this shot and repeated this shot a few more times to ensure the right shot was made.

1:30pm - We finally was ready to shoot the last shot however this was the crane shot and as we had previous experience with the crane shot during AS levels, we knew this was going to be a difficult shot to create. It took 30 minutes to set up the crane kit as we hadn't set up the crane kit since AS level. It was only a slight delay as we expected the set up to take this long.

2:00pm - We begun to shoot the crane shot but before this, we informed the actors of what to do. While David sits on the bench, Tina and Ruth must walk away as the camera lifts to show its the end of the film. At first it was quite difficult to achieve this shot as every time we lifted the crane, the camera shook which means it would ruin the narrative effect of a short film. Eventually we perfected this shot by starting to lift the crane prior to when we want it to therefore we perfect this shot by editing the first part out. Just like all the shots before, we repeated this processes a few more times so when it comes to editing, the right shot will be there.

3:00pm - Now that the crane shot was complete, we have finished shooting on location day 1.

Here is an overall review of the shots that we filmed on this day:


Overall Evaluation of Filming

As this was the first day of filming, we overall expected each shot to be difficult as we haven't filmed since the documentary task therefore we decided to take our times with each shot to ensure that they are made at the best of our ability. We also wanted to make sure that these shots were perfected as we don't want to reshoot this scene as it was outside and incredibly cold. All the actors participated well as they followed all of the directions that were given to them. As one of the actresses, Ruth, was wearing a red vest top, we knew how cold she was going to be so every time we finished filming, one of the crew members quickly ran to her with a coat so she can be warmed up because it was essential that we keep all of our actors/actresses and crew members safe from any risks. Overall we believed that this was a good day to film as no real issues were made however looking back at some of the shots, we believe that the lighting in some parts are too bright but we know we can colour correct those shots when it comes to editing.