BJ: Reflection on Shoot 11/01/2015

Location

On Sunday the 11th January we carried out our first shoot for our final production. The shoot was carried out at our friend Andrew Jackson's house located in Hadlow. Near his home, he has a workshop built from corrugated steel that was a great place to shoot. Before the shoot, Ollie and I arrived at about 1 o'clock to set everything up and practice some shots.

Scene

• The scene we were focusing on in this shoot was the interrogation between the female suspect and the male inspector, which makes up the majority of our film. 
• In this scene the two cast members were Freddie and his sister, Louise, who kindly lent herself to our project. 
• We focused on getting all the shots we needed with Louise as she is going back to university this week.

A practice over-the-shoulder shot

Individual Contribution

• My main role during the shoot was operating the camera and directing some shots. The camera involved was mainly tracking shots as we wanted constant movement in the scene, to create unease. 
• I also helped dress up the set and position lights where they needed to be, this was a very tedious task. 
• Before the shoot, I prepared a script as there is quite a lot of dialogue in our opening. 

Use of Storyboard

• Our storyboard helped us effectively plan the shots we needed and how we expected them to look. This prevented us from going to the location trying to find shots that worked. 
• However, we decided to add frames and shots that weren't in our storyboard, as we got to the location and tried to experiment with different framing. This was not a problem as it gave us a wider range of shots to use.

An over-the-shoulder shot from our shoot

What Worked Well

• On location, we thought that the lighting would be too dark, but on reviewing the footage, lighting was one of the things that came out really well in our film. The lighting was very low-key that gave an eerie feel to the film.
• Particular shots worked well in our shoot. Most notably was the over the shoulder shots. These shots worked well because it positioned the audience as part of the conversation, creating a sense of immediacy.
• We believe that camera movement was a good point from our shoot. We place one piece of track behind each of our cast, and slowly moved the camera across to the other side during the scene. We felt this technique was really effective. This allows us to get away with any breaks in the 180 degree rule, as the camera is constantly moving. 

  

  A view of the set up we used

  

  An example of how we lit the shot

What Didn't Work Well

Some footage came out quite grainy

• A challenge we faced when shooting was creating the right lighting to make the footage as clear as possible without making the lighting too bright. Because of this, our footage came out slightly grainy, however it is not a major problem.
• Another challenge we faced was timing. As Louise, was in a rush to get away, we rushed a few scenes that we could have taken more time on. This means some scenes may be slightly poor, however we will take timing into consideration next time.

  

  An idea for different lighting to make the footage clearer

Experience

• In our next shoot we will try to work out timing better so we can have a clear plan of when we will start and finish shooting.
• We will try more variety of shots as we need more technical excellence. This includes more close ups and trying to make the audience feel more of a part of the conversation.