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.