Nisserin Bessioua - UCA Television Production

Shoot day 5 was relatively simple compared to the rest of shoot week. For this day we were on location filming a variety of shots of the location which will appear as the village our characters   Annie and Dean live in.  For this day we had the shot list I had previously made so we know exactly what shots were needed and wherein the location we needed to be. We almost used this a checklist in that once the director was happy with a take of each shot, we crossed it off and moved onto the next shot. this made the day flow smoothly and didn't waste any time not knowing what we were doing.  WWW: Camera: For our opening shot of the location, the director wanted a panning shot of the beach huts along the coast. Due to the fact that we didnt yet know how much time we would have for these types of shots as the edited hadnt been started, when filming this speicific shot, I made sure to film a few takes where I each one, the pannning mot...

This is the last day of this week that we're filming with our actors and also one of the more complicated days as we had 2 quite big scenes to film which for one we were filming Multicam and one we weren't because of the location and space that was available. Cameras: For scene 11 which was located in the kitchen, there is limited space in the room for equipment which meant that this scene had to be filmed multiple times with a shot changes throughout. Despite this taking slighting longer than if we were filming multi-cam, it allowed me to make sure that each shot was exactly how I wanted and I could focus my attention on the one or two cameras rather than all three.  We filmed the wide shot and Dean's close up at the same time, and the rest of the shots were done single camera.  Due to the layout of the house, for scene 11, we had our actors facing away from us at the start as they were facing the counter and then the aim was as they started talking to each othe...

Wednesday 21st February: On our third day of the shoot, we were using the green screen in the living room which needed to be set up properly to make sure that it didn't create any issues with our filming; there was some bright sunshine which added some extra challenges with the lighting as our main light source was daylight.  Lighting:  For this day we had very bright sunlight which brought with it some challenges when we were filming in the living room and through the doorway. In the living room of our location, there are large French doors which we were initially going to leave of open to use as our main lighting source however due to the sun giving hotspots in the room and in our actors, a solution had to be found. In an attempt to reduce the brightness of the sun, we attached an ND filter to the doors to reduce some of the light strength, this helped somewhat, however, wasn't enough. We ended up pulling the ...

Tuesday 20th February On Tuesday morning we received a message saying that the LED lighting kit and the Rotolight were back in the store and we could not come and collect them for our shoot. Becca, Laura and I discussed whether or not we should get them or whether we should stick with the Arri lighting kit that we had. One of my points was that we don't want the lighting to look too different as the different style of lights produce very different looks however I eventually decided that it would be beneficial to us to have both sets of different lights as the LEDs are much easier to set up and use which would hopefully intern save us some time during the set up process.  Lighting: For this day we had the Arri lighting kit, LED kit and the Rotolight. This gave a few different options for lighting, each giving us a different look. One of our queries was the rest of our shoot week looking too different to Monday where we had to use the Arri lights. I decided that we wer...

Monday 19th February -  We started Monday morning with a few problems, one of these being that we didn’t have any lighting equipment to use. Although we had planned to use majority natural lighting, the day was very dark and although overcast which is preferable to bright sunlight, it was not enough light in the rooms we were filming in to illuminate the backgrounds and the subjects. This initially set us back as we then had to take time out to travel to the studios and retrieve some lights for which we had to take out tungstens as the LED kit and Rotolight hadn't been returned to the store yet. This created a few issues for us in that we have never tested out the tungsten lights in our location before we would had no idea how they would look and if they're create the desired effect.  When we arrived back to the location, myself and my camera assistant Andreya started to set up the cameras and light along with the help of our runner George and sound operator Jemma. To...

Before our shoot week, I had the idea of creating a shoot pack for each day of filming which would include the scene from the script we were filming, the blocking of the different locations and the sections of the shot list that we would be filming.  After discussing the idea with the director who agreed that this would be helpful, together we made then for each of our filming days. These ended up being thoroughly used throughout our filming days, with all crew members having a copy, they were constantly referred to and meant that everyone was on track and working together well as we all knew we were and what was going on.  These were not only helpful on shoot days but also for our crew meeting that we had before shoot week. This meeting was for everyone to be given a run through of how the shoot days would pan out, the kinds of things we would be filming and what each person would be tasked with doing.  My role as part of the meeting was to go through the t...

As part of my role, it was important that I complete a location recce before we film so that I was not only prepared but knew logistically where I could place all the equipment and how much space we had in the location.   Equipment storage:   As part of the recce, the producer and I agreed on a place in the location to store all of the equipment when we were not using it. This meant that everything was kept together and things were easy to find but also meant that it was kept away from our actors, reducing any risk of injury and anyone tripping over things left lying around.   In this location, we also agreed on setting up a battery charging station where through the day we could charge up the camera and light batteries so that we were ready and prepared if we needed a replacement. Power: In each room of the location, I went around and located the plug sockets which were important for if any of our equipment or props needed to be plugged in at a mains point. Th...

In order to make sure that the set design that we want is achieved, we have planned for a test shoot for us. During this we will place the props in our different locations, working with the director to keep within her vision for Annie & Dean's house.  After purchasing all our props we chose a day where we could set them all up in our location and try out places to put each one until we found out a display that we liked the most and felt that fit with Annie & Dean’s personalities and would be something that they would have in their home.  In the house, once we’d chosen the layout that we wanted we took pictures so we would remember where everything went for shoot week so that at the beginning of the day Laura and our runner George could set them up whilst myself and my camera assistant were setting up the cameras and lights and Jemma the sound.  Side board in Entryway This should make the morning set up go quite quickly and smoothing so that we...