Shoot Day One
Today was the first day of my shoot. I am filming the scenes featuring Ellie.
Call sheet:
I was the crew for my shoot - I acted as the director and shot the footage on camera. I decided against having more crew as all I needed to capture was visuals and therefore only needed myself on camera - had I needed audio as well then I would have recruited an additional person for my crew.
Despite it being very cold in my filming locations, the shoot day went very smoothly. Ellie turned up on time and we started filming almost immediately. The costume I gave her was an entirely black costume with a brown faux fur coat. This was so that the orange roses that she was carrying / dropping would stand out from / contrast with her outfit. The outfit also gave a very natural feel - which was very important to Ellie’s character as I wanted her character to look fresh faced and natural.
The first location I filmed in was the lane. I directed Ellie to walk down the lane in both directions whilst I followed her with the camera in a medium shot. I decided to get her to walk both ways down the lane so I could pick which way looked best when it came to the edit. For every shot I did which featured Ellie, I filmed the shot without her in it too so that I could flicker the shots in the edit. After filming the medium shots following Ellie, I made sure I filmed all the other shots I outlined in my shot list plus a few extras (including: close up shots of the flowers dropping on the floor and close up shots of the flowers on the floor). I wanted to ensure I had as much footage as possible to play around with in the edit (without deviating too much from the shot list).
The second location I filmed in was the open field. Again, I followed my shot list for this location as well as getting additional shots of the roses being dropped and lying on the ground.
The final location was the wooded area. Again, I followed the shot list and gained additional shots. In each location, although I only needed one shot in following Ellie in each, I decided to get at least three incase I lost focus in any of them whilst tracking her. This wasn’t essential but I thought it was a good practice to put in place in case I got to the edit and realised the footage was out of focus / had soft focus.
What went well:
- Ellie was very easy to direct - she did everything she was asked to do and offered her own input into how to make the shot better. When following Ellie, I had originally planned to just have her glancing back over her shoulder, however, during the shoot we realised that her face was obscured by the coat. So together we decided to have her spin around to face James and then spin back around and keep walking. I really like the effect of this and think it works better than my original idea.
- Most shots we got on the first attempt - some of the more complex shots were filmed several times to ensure at least one of them would be in focus for the edit - however, the content of each shot was correct and as outlined in the shot list.
- The camera performed well and I am happy with all the shots I filmed - in our News Production unit we couldn’t get the camera to focus crisply in our live segment. Following this I decided I would always test the focus on the camera before shooting. Because I did this, all my shots are in focus this time.
What could be improved:
- I only had 3 hours to shoot with Ellie so I had to ensure we stuck to the shot list quite closely. Although I did get some additional footage, it would have been nice to experiment some more if I had more time. In future I could schedule my shoot better so that there is more time to film.
- After reviewing the footage, I realised some shots were slightly over exposed (however, not so much that this couldn’t be fixed in post production). I will need to make sure the exposure of these shots match with the exposure of the shots I will film of James on Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment