PRODUCTION • Shoot Day 7

Outside :

For scene 2, 3 and 12, we were filming outside on the driveway of the house. On this shoot, I didn’t have any camera assistants or runners so I had a lot more to do than I did on previous shoot days when I had some people to help me. Initially I felt that I could cope with this as I had a plan for myself as to how I would do this in the most efficient and productive way. We did have a sound operator so that wasn’t something that I had to completely do. 

I initially started the day by setting up my camera with all the correct settings so that I was ready to go as soon as the cast had arrived and got into costume. The weather on this day overcast and lightly raining so to prepare for this, I attached small plastic bags to the tripod legs and also covered the camera in a large plastic bag while it was not being used to keep it dry; it also put under the car boot to help keep everything dry and out of the bad weather. 

We began filming with our wide shot of the house from the opposite side of the pavement. For this shot, the director came with me when taking this shot to make sure it was what she wanted and the actors were in their positions whilst Laura stood on the driveway with them giving them the cue to begin the scene. 

Wide shot outside Marie's House

We then moved back onto the driveway and completed scene 2 and 3 which both took place in the same area of the driveway. We ran into a few sound issues when filming as we were filming on a main 40mph road which caused us to have to wait for a car to pass before we started a take or redo takes because there were a group of fast cars passing through which made overpowered the sound recording. This also effected the recording as we had to make sure that if. Car went past and if could be heard in the audio track, then it should be seen in the visuals so that they match which meant that we had to do quite a few takes of each shot where we’re facing the road. 

Inside:

After our outside shots were filmed we moved inside to the living room where we filed scene 13 with our Marie character. For this scene we filmed with the green screen on the television which was simple to set up as I had already tested it during our location recce the previous week. For this scene I filmed a range of different shots which gave us lots of coverage and options in the edit. We also did some shots that we hadn’t planned on as extras just so we had as much as possible as this was one of our more tricky locations. 

For the lighting inside I used one 1 LED as the rest was mostly natural lighting, there were large patio doors as well as a large window which illuminated the room and the LED acted as the key light for the character in the scene Marie. This worked well as the overcast weather allowed for some nice diffused lighting look with no bright sunlight shining.

Wide Shot inside Marie's House

WWW:

I think that due to this being our final filming day we had worked out our preferred way of filming things and the order in which we do them as we know what works best for us. I think the planning go this day and the order in which we filmed the scenes worked well. I also think there was really good communication between me and the director. I think because this day was quite stressful at times as this was the most we’d filmed outside but we handled the day well and worked well to get everything done that we wanted to. In terms of my role I think that filming outside and getting the lighting and trying out different pieces of equipment like the reflector and the ND filters to make the shots look the best that I could was something that went well and I had definitely learned different techniques and quick ways of doing through throughout the course of the production. 

EBI:

Due to some of the sound issues we had, we ended up running over schedule slightly which were notified about by the producer, however there were some points where these became distracting rather than helpful as it was necessary we got all our shot whether we were over schedule or not. There were points where it was suggested that we skip filming certain shots because we were running out of time which I personally found not help at all and if anything caused us to waste more time by discussing this rather than just getting on with the filming. If I were to redo this shoot, I would suggest to crew that any discussions like these don’t take place in front of cast members as I feel this doesn’t give off a professionalism that we hoped to portray.