Our stooge was none other than Aidan, Alex's good friend. We put him to the test with some hangover cures we had found during our research. Due to ethical reasons and time constrictions, we couldn't actually get Aidan drunk for the shoot, so he acted for us instead. We then backed up each of the hangover cures with a scientific explanation as to why it should cure a hangover.
We aimed to meet at 10am, however, we ended up running a little behind schedule and ended up meeting and getting to the location at around 11am. We also had to go out and buy some of the ingredients for the hangovers cures which took up more time than we had anticipated. We ended up starting to film at around 1pm / 2pm.
The whole group was able to make it for this shoot - so we had a full crew. Jason and Alex presented their parts but then were able to jump back behind the scenes when they weren't needed. We also had a lot of equipment to use for this shoot - we had the Sony EX Camera, Canon 700D, sound equipment and soft box lighting. I worked mainly on camera and sound but also did some running. Melissa took her turn on camera, helped the presenters with their lines and also did some running. Alex acted as the presenter, director, camera man and sound man at separate times across the shoot. Jason worked as the presenter and camera man.
We started with filming the visual metaphor sequence with Jason explaining how a hangover works. This took a few takes as pouring the m&m's (which represented different substances) turned out to be harder than anticipated - with some sticking to the shot glasses and others getting spilt.
We then filmed the PTC's of Jason presenting - we did this by getting Jason to remember the first part of his script and then allowing him to read off the script for the rest of it - as his lines were long and we had no auto prompter. The parts where he is reading of the script would be the parts covered by GV's and sequences.
After Jason's lines were delivered, we focused on filming the sequences of beer getting poured and Aidan drinking. This will be used to show Aidan getting 'drunk' to test the hangovers. We filmed the same things in a variety of shots to give the illusion of many beers being poured and drunk. We also ensured we filmed the hangover cure of drinking water as you go at this point - as this is the only other shot needed in the bar.
Once we were satisfied with the number of shots we got of the beer drinking / pouring sequence - we turned our attention to filming the 'studio' shots with Alex presenting.
First, we had to set up the set. Myself and Melissa designed some myth / conspiracy posters to stick up on the wall. These were to give the illusion of mad scribbles trying to work out myths and bust them - which is the theme of our channel. It took a while to set this up as we had to ensure the posters were positioned correctly to work with the camera. We also set up two soft box lights (which were also used for the bar sequences) to light the set. Ideally, we would have liked to have a third light to light up the background, however, we didn't have access to another light.
Once we were all set up, we got stuck into filming the introduction shots. However, we ran into some technical difficulties as, after around 20 minutes of filming and finally getting the shot we liked, we realised the microphone had become unplugged and therefore didn't capture the sound. This meant having to start again but with the microphone plugged in this time!
After we had filmed all the studio shots, we then filmed the trailer. We decided to do an improvised trailer using the same background as we did for the 'studio' shots. For the trailer we decided to ask a lot of questions - some of them being common myths, some being completely ridiculous - we wanted it to sound like the mad ramblings of a theorist. To make this into more of a trailer - we added in "Come to The Bunker..." - to actually advertise the channel.
What went well:
- the visual metaphor for the reactions in the body during a hangover worked really well - with graphics / text this will make the scientific jargon much more understandable for our young target audience
- Aidan was a brilliant stooge. Having worked with him before, we already knew he would be a good character and a natural talker
- We managed to get all the shots we wanted, even though we started late - this was aided by the shot list as we knew exactly what we wanted to film
- The settings on the camera co operated this time, we didn't have any trouble focusing
What could be improved:
- Our time management could definitely have been improved. We could have prepared better by buying food and props needed before the shoot day so we could just crack on with shooting. We also realised that we probably shot things in the wrong order. We filmed the bar scenes in the daylight and the hangover / morning after scenes in the darkness. This is just down to a lack of organisation.
- Although it was great to come up with new ideas on the spot, this took up more time that we didn't necessarily have. There were a few spur of the moment type shots that took a lot longer than anticipated.
- Making sure all the equipment is plugged in and working before shooting a lot of footage. Our microphone became unplugged before shooting our initial 'studio' scenes, meaning all our audio was lost for that. In future, it would be wise to check everything is plugged in and do a quick test before shooting a lot of footage. This ended up costing us more time that we could have been using more effectively.
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