Account of Shoot Day

Our shoot day was slightly different to the normal shoot day, as we shot all of our footage on location.  This was because of the fact that our location was 1:30 hours away from the Studio were most group film the second half of their footage.  This meant that we had to be very conscious of time and be definite in all of the shot, angles etc. and make sure that there was no technical or continuity errors in the film as we could not come back to Battersea power station and re-shoot.  We came across many problems with the scheduling of our shoot day from the weather to the security matters, this lead to rescheduling 2 or 3 times before we could actually film.  Although this created a sense organization on our behalf as we had prepared 2 or 3 times, so when the final day arrived we were sure we had thought of everything.

The day continued in this fashion:

Shooting schedule:

8:30 – Meet the crew in the studio to pack the van and talk about the day ahead

9:00 – Leave in the Mini bus with equipment and crew to Battersea

11:30- Arrive and have a security debriefing/ health and safety talk

12:00 – Begin shooting, set up tracking and play back- shoot on front of the wind turbine A +B

12:30 – Shoot more exterior of Battersea capturing the sun in the background

1:30 – Brief lunch

2:00 – Shoot interior, of “wind turbine A”

3:00 – Shoot the closing shots of realization of dead girl.

3:30- Shoot Walking through exterior tunnels and of industrial London

4:00 - Pack up tracking and play back and go back to Hurtwood.

This tight schedule helped us to stay focus and not go of the reason for why were at such a cultivating location. 

Once we arrived and had set up we looked over the storyboards, another member of our team 1 as we were switching between the role of director and in charge of playback to give a rounded feel to how everything worked and to keep on top of everything.  After we had setting up we did a couple of test shots, but unhappy with the amount of light on our artist face we decided to use a gold reflector to create more light and give him a golden feel, this job was taken on by another member of the crew Caterina, who was very good at this particular job.

Furthermore, his golden warmth was also represented in the sunny day that we were blessed, and further emphasized with warmth.

One of the strengths of this shoot day I think was our organization and hard work as although we did not have a vast amount of time to shoot we utilized every minute.  Another strength not just for the structure of the shoot day but also for our editing was that we shot in order.  This allowed us to have a clear picture of the story in our head and edit it to that same way when looking back on it in the edit suites, giving it an organic feel.

However, I feel a weakness could have been the cooperation from the rest of the group other than my self and James Burke and our teaching crew as some of the other members of the group did not pick up there end of the slack, leading to James and I to do it for them.  Although, this did not affect our end product or the running’s of the day as James and I were happy and capable to do so.

In addition, to having a security debriefing we also had to have two security guards with us at all time, keeping us save and also making sure we stayed in the designated areas.  However, this was no trouble as all of the crew were respectable of the location and behaved in a professional manner.

All in all, I feel our shoot day went very well and we achieved a lot in a small amount of time, we also all seemed to enjoy it very much shooting in such an established Location.