Like with the previous shoot days, I planned out the shots required in my storyboard and shot list - I only brought along the shot list as this worked more as a checklist of what to film - there was little point bringing the storyboard as I made this prior to the shot list in order to help me put together the shot list as a checklist (both the storyboard and shot list contain the same information, the storyboard just has additional sketches of what is expected in each shot). This shot list helped me to ensure I captured all the correct footage in the correct framing with the correct movements to make up the narrative of the product. The director approved the shot list and storyboard prior to the shoot so that when it came to shooting, I could be setting up the camera whilst the director blocked the actors - making the shoot run a lot more smoothly.
The shoot running smoothly was very important for this shoot day as we only had our actor Sheila until 12 O’clock, meaning we needed to film her scenes as efficiently as possible to make the most out of our time with her. This did put some time pressure on the shoot day as we had to film scene 4 out of order (which was not the preferred method of filming the scene due to working with fake blood which had the potential to affect the continuity) - this also meant I had to stick exactly to my shot list which worked fine but I would have liked to get more extra coverage that could be used in the edit. We still managed to capture all the necessary footage - it just felt a little rushed.
Scene 5
We started out by filming scene 5 as this was Sheila's main scene and we needed to make the most out of our time with this actor. This was also a relatively simple scene to shoot in terms of the coverage needed to capture all the dialogue and action. As a relatively dialogue heavy scene, the majority is made up of shot reverse shots which I took a couple of takes of each to ensure my zooms were in the correct places. Like the previous shoot days, I decided to do the zooms when it felt natural with the delivery of the dialogue, as opposed to sticking with my planned zooms. I practised when I would do the zooms whilst the director blocked and rehearsed with the actors so I could get a feel of where the actors would be stood and how they would deliver their dialogue and actions.
In addition to the shot reverse shots that made up the majority of the scene, I captured a wide shot to establish Luke walking up to Sheila's house and a closeup of the bin bag dropping. If there was less time pressure I could have captured more footage to experiment with in the edit, however, this was not essential as I feel I have captured a good amount of coverage to work with to make up the narrative of the scene.
Due to this part of the shoot taking place when the weather was still cloudy, I did not have to combat the strong sun and the harsh shadows it can create (which is a problem I had to deal with later in the shoot day). This meant that exposing this scene was relatively simple as I was not having to compensate for overexposure due to bright sunlight.
The settings I used for this scene were ISO 500, an aperture ranging between F/6.4 and F/8.2, a shutter speed of 1/50 and an ND filter of 1/4. Due to this scene being lit naturally by the natural daylight from the north west direction, I decided to use an ND filter of 1/4 as using no ND filter produced an overexposed shot where the details within the highlights of the shot became lost whilst using a heavier ND filter produced an underexposed shot where the details within the shadows became lost. I decided against changing the aperture too much to compensate of the overexposure without an ND filter as using an aperture higher than F/10 on the Panasonic creates a slightly soft looking shot due to diffraction through the lens. Therefore, I kept the aperture between F/6.4 and F/8.2 depending on what the shot consisted of. I used the wider aperture of F/6.4 for Sheila's medium closeup as this was not facing into the bright sky - instead this shot was facing into Sheila's house. This meant an aperture of F/6.4 worked well to expose Sheila naturally so that the detail within the highlights, midtones and shadows could be deciphered when lit naturally from the natural daylight. I then used a slightly narrower aperture of F/7.2 for the wide shot of Luke approaching Sheila's house as this shot included a small area of the white looking sky. This called for a narrower aperture as the sky appeared too blown out and overexposed at the wider aperture settings. I the narrowed the aperture further to F/7.6 for the close up of the bin bag dropping to the floor as otherwise the lighter portions of the shot looked unnaturally light and slightly overexposed. The narrowest exposure I used for this scene was F/8.2 which was for Luke's medium closeup shot - I chose to narrow the aperture to this level as a lot of white sky is apparent in the background of the shot. Without narrowing the exposure, this sky looked very overexposed which made the highlights of the footage lose their details. However, due to this narrower exposure, Luke's face is a little darker than I ideally would have liked it - I should have used the reflector in this situation but I had already determined that it would not be necessary for the shoot so I didn't think to get it out. Instead, I will increase the levels of the midtones and shadows in the post production process - I will only increase the levels slightly as to keep the natural look and not lose the details within the different elements that make up the shot. I decided to keep a constant shutter speed throughout the scene as adjusting the aperture appeared to be the better option for correctly exposing the shot - keeping the shutter speed constant also ensure the motion blur within each shot was continuous throughout the scene.
Scene 4
When setting up to film scene 4, we had originally planned to be on the opposite side of the road to the side that we ended up filming on. We had planned to be on the opposite side due to the background of the scene only being a line of houses, meaning there would be less to go wrong in terms of continuity. However, due to the position of the sun at this time of day (around 11 o'clock), I would have been shooting straight into the sun which produced quite a silhouetted look on Tim and Luke which would have produced lower quality visuals. Due to this, we decided to move the scene onto the opposite side of the road as the sun didn't cause as much interference as it did on the other side (although the lighting situation was still not ideal).
Scene 4 was a complex scene to film due to there being a lot of different movements going on. I decided to follow my shot list quite closely for this scene as I wanted to ensure everything was captured to make up the narrative of the scene. Due to Sheila having to leave quite early, we attempted to get to her bit of the scene as soon as possible - meaning the portion of the scene prior to her entry was filmed quite quickly in a minimal number of takes to ensure we got the shots we needed with Sheila before she had to leave. The shots we filmed prior to Sheila's entry were the low angle shot of Tim and Luke looking over the dog, the panning shot filmed from the interior of the van and the closeup shot of the blood splattering on Tim's face as this would need to be the same for the wide shot including Sheila (meaning this could not be filmed after our actress for Sheila left as the blood in the splatter scene and when he is talking to Sheila needed to be the same). Luckily, filming these shots turned out to be very smooth as there was no zooming involved on my part due to the panning shot needing to remain at a constant frame size due to the characters being positioned at different distances away from the camera (so zooming on one character would change the frame size for the other character which would not have worked). This meant that I did not have to do multiple takes to correct my zooms or make them feel more natural as there were no zooms in the shot. I only did a couple of takes of this shot as the director wanted the actors to deliver their lines slightly differently.
Following this panning shot, I filmed the closeup blood splatter shot. We only had one chance to film this due to not being able to control the blood splatter too precisely as it needed to look natural (and if the blood went on the costume, we would not be able to do another take). Luckily I managed to capture this in one take and incorporated a zoom with the correct timings to emphasise the blood splatter. Unfortunately, there was not as much blood as I ideally would have liked to see in the shot (however, that is more due to the amount sprayed at the actor rather than the shot itself) and the actor looks in the direction of the camera slightly as he flinches in reaction to the blood (which can look like he is looking into the lens and breaking the observatory nature of the product even though he doesn't actually look directly into the lens).
Once these shots were filmed, I moved onto filming the wide three shot, the medium closeup of Sheila and the medium two shot of Tim and Luke. The sun for these shots did pose a slight problem as they cast harsh light and shadows onto the actors faces. However, this was the best positioning within the location for the scene as we had previously tried positioning the van on the opposite side of the road facing the opposite direction, however, the sun interfered more in these shots than it did in the shots I ended up capturing. Therefore, I just adjusted the camera settings the best I could to try and produce the most accurately exposed shots. I started by filming the wide three shot as this also acts as Sheila's entry to the scene. I filmed this all at one frame size as the majority of this portion of this scene would be made up from Sheila's medium closeup and the medium two shot of Tim and Luke which would incorporate the use of zooms to emphasise the humour. I shot a couple of takes of the three shot to ensure the dialogue was captured as the director wanted it. Filming the medium two shot of Tim and Luke and Sheila's medium closeup were slightly more complicated to film as Tim touches Sheila with a bloody hand halfway through the scene so this element of continuity needed to be retained between the shots. I worked around this by filming the medium two shot of Tim and Luke first without Tim actually touching Sheila's cardigan with his bloody hand - I then filmed Sheila's medium closeup with Tim touching her cardigan (we only had a couple of chances to get this shot right as we only had a couple of back up cardigans which could only be touched with the bloody hand once) - I then filmed the medium two shot of Tim and Luke again with the cardigan already bloodied so that the rest of this portion of the scene until Sheila's exit has the blood print on Sheila's shoulder. Filming the shots in this way ensured continuity throughout the scene. One problem with continuity that did occur, however, was the fact that some of the cars in the background of the medium closeup of Sheila began to move. But due to the time restrictions and the limited amount of cardigans, we had to film with the cars moving in the background which resulted in quite a distracting shot. This could not be re-filmed as the cars behind Sheila would have moved and affected the continuity between the wide shot where the cars are visible and the medium closeup of Sheila where there would no longer be any cars. The ideal situation would have been to re shoot both the medium closeup and the wide shot but due to the time restrictions and Sheila needing to leave, this was not possible.
Following these shots, I filmed the medium closeup singles of Tim and of Luke after Sheila has left them. These were simple shots to film due to them being in the shot reverse shot style. I only needed to do multiple takes to ensure my zooms were in the correct place to make the most out of the humour within their dialogue. The final shots to be filmed for this scene were the closeup shots of Tim preparing for the surgery prior to the blood splat and Sheila's arrival - this was not ideal as there were a couple of blood splats from the blood splat scene that could be seen in the van, however, these can be cropped out of shot due to filming in 4K resolution.
The settings I used in this scene varied a bit due to the different lighting conditions within the scene (i.e. filming in the darkness of the van and filming in the harsh light of the sunlight). The settings I used were; ISO 500, an aperture ranging between F/6.3 and F/7.6, a shutter speed of 1/50 and ND filters ranging between 1/4 and 1/16. I started out by using an aperture of F/7.6 and an ND filter of 1/4 to expose the low angle two shot of Tim and Luke (along with the previously stated shutter speed and ISO). This worked to produce a good exposure as they are mainly shaded from the bright harsh sunlight - the details of the shot can be seen within the shadows, midtones and highlights of the shot (even the areas where some sunlight creeps through) which will allow for the best colour grade. I then used an aperture F/6.8 with the same ND filter for the panning shot filmed from inside the van. I used these settings as the camera was still pointing in the same direction as the original shot so was being reached by almost the same amount of natural light - the only thing affected the light was the fact that this was being shot from the shelter of the van which added some shade to the scene. I, therefore, widened the aperture to F/6.8 to compensate for this darker look to expose the characters better - I had to be conscious not to overexpose the scene as Luke was positioned out of the shelter of the van so was still being affected by the harsh sunlight so I couldn't widen the aperture too far. For the closeup of the blood splatter I decided to widen the aperture to F/6.3 as Luke was not in shot so I did not have to worry about overexposing him, I just needed to worry about the exposure of Tim so I decided to widen the aperture to increase the exposure slightly to ensure all detail within the shot could be seen. For the wide three shot I kept a similar aperture of F/6.4 but increased the density of the ND filter to 1/16 to compensate for the harsh light coming from the sun. This worked better than narrowing the aperture as I would have had to narrow the aperture past F/10 which would have caused a slightly soft image through diffraction of the lens. I then kept the settings similar for Sheila's medium closeup by widening the aperture slightly to F/6.3 - I did this because the harsh shadows caused by the sun appeared ever so slightly underexposed so were losing detail, however, widening the aperture made the highlights in Sheila's skin look a little overexposed. This should be rectifiable in the edit by decreasing the level of the highlights. This was the shot that could not be re-filmed due to time restrictions and the continuity of the scene, otherwise I would have reshot the shot with a slightly narrower aperture as the detail and exposure of Sheila should have taken priority over the shadows that could be seen. For the medium two shot of Tim and Luke I narrowed the aperture to F/7.2 as the bright sky is visible in a large portion of the shot and this appeared overexposed at the previous wider apertures. This aperture ensures that Tim and Luke are correctly exposed with their skin tone not appearing overexposed like in Sheila's medium closeup whilst also ensuring that the background is also correctly exposed to maintain a high visual quality. This exposure allows details such as the blood on Tim's hands to be seen which is vital for the comedy within this shot. For Luke's medium closeup single shot, I widened the aperture to F/6.7 as the camera was pointing more away from the sun than for Tim's medium closeup single where I used an aperture of F/7.6. These apertures allowed for the characters to be correctly exposed whilst ensuring that the background (especially the sky) was not blown out and overexposed. The final shots were the closeups of the surgical equipment and the preparation for surgery for which I used an aperture of F/7.4 and an ND filter of 1/4. These settings were used due to being filmed in the shade of the van and so called for a less dense ND filter and a slightly wider aperture. This ensured the shot was correctly exposed and all the detail could be seen which was especially important for these shots due to being closeup and, therefore, more obvious if any elements are incorrectly exposed.
Scene 6
Scene 6 was a very simple scene to film due to being filmed all in one continuous panning and zooming shot. Whilst the director blocked the actors, I planned the movement of the camera - including where and when I would need to zoom to reveal the cat lying under the gate. Filming this was very simple as I mainly had to pan to follow the movement of the characters and then the movement of the van before having to pan back and zoom in to reveal the cat. To ensure the camera movements were as smooth and timely as possible, we ran through this scene a few times to capture a few takes. The most difficult part of the scene to film was panning back from the van driving away to the cat and zooming in whilst keeping all of the shot in focus in the different frame sizes during the continuous shot.
The settings I used for this scene were; ISO 500, aperture F/7.5, shutter speed of 1/50 and an ND filter of 1/4. I used these settings as the shot was quite a long shot which meant the bright sky made up less of the shot than for the previous closer up shots where I used a thicker ND filter of 1/16/ Using these settings allowed for a accurate and natural exposure for both the long shot and the zooming close up shot of the cat. I had to be careful with exposing the cat due to a lot of its fur being white and at risk of being overexposed. Therefore, I changed the settings slightly between each take and finally settled on F/7.5 as the perfect aperture for ensuring the highlights, midtones and shadows all retained their detail so give most scope for colour grading in post production.
Scene 3
Scene 3 was the last scene to be filmed due to it only involving Tim and Luke (so we did not need to have Sheila present to film the scene) and it being a relatively simple scene to film as it is made up of mainly a shot reverse shot of Tim and Luke with a closeup of the phone being cut in. I filmed this by filming Luke's medium closeup first, followed by Tim's medium closeup then finally the closeup of the phone. I took takes both with and without zooms as the shots are already quite close in so I did not want to make the shots feel too unnaturally close and invasive - this way we have the coverage to work with in the edit and decide what works best with the rest of the product. This scene will need a lot of work in the post production process due to it being filmed stationary whereas the characters are actually supposed to be driving in the shot - so I will need to add an overlay or an effect to emulate shadows which would fall on the characters if they were to be moving. I had to ensure I did not capture the opposite windows in the medium closeup singles as this would give away that they are not actually driving the van.
I did also film this scene by attaching a fixed go pro to the window screen of the van, however, this would not keep with the filming style of the rest of the product so will not be used in the edit.
This scene also involved filming the dog hit. I filmed this in the way I tested previously in this unit - I filmed Tim's closeup with a jolt when the dog is supposed to be hit. This will then be complimented by the sound design. From my research into The Office and the clip where Michael hits Meredith with his car, the sound design will be made up of Tim's reaction shout, the screeching of the breaks and a whimper of the dog being hit. This will make this jolt more believable as the vehicle hitting a dog.
The settings I used to film this scene were; ISO 500, an aperture ranging between F/6.7 and F/7.2, a shutter speed of 1/48 and an ND filter of 1/4. For the medium closeup singles of the characters I used an aperture of F/6.7 with an ND filter of 1/4 as they were being lit by the natural light which by this point in the shoot was less harsh due to the sun being behind clouds. This meant I used a less dense ND filter as the sunlight was not causing harsh light and shadows to fall on the characters faces. I used a slightly narrower aperture of F/7.2 when filming the closeup of the phone as I wanted to ensure the map was correctly exposed so the full details could be seen as this was integral to the humour of the scene. I used a slightly slower shutter speed of 1/48 to increase the exposure slightly as it appeared slightly dull as 1/50 - however, the shutter speed did not change enough to affect the motion blur of the scene which is important in keeping the continuity of the product. Overall, these settings allowed for a good exposure to work with in the post production process - this is especially important for this scene as the visuals of this scene will be manipulated a lot to make it appear that the van is moving - this meant the highlights, midtones and shadows needed to be completely accurate to avoid losing detail during the manipulation in the post production process.
What went well
- Despite the time pressure and some of the shots not being entirely ideal, all the necessary shots required to make up the narrative of the scenes were captured which means if we can't re shoot, we still have a workable product as all the shots are there (just some lack the visual quality that the rest of the product possesses).
- The continuous panning shot used for scene 6 worked really well - I was worried about capturing this scene all in one shot as I had to pan, zoom and re focus all in the same shot. However, this worked well to convey the urgency of the scene and the panic the characters are feeling in the situation.
What didn't go well
- We only had our actress playing Sheila for a short period of time due to a last minute appointment. This made the shoot slightly more rushed than we would have ideally liked as we had to ensure we got all the footage with Sheila before she had to leave. Scene 5 worked well, however, her medium closeup in scene 4 was slightly overexposed due to the changing weather and the sun producing harsh light and shadows. There was also a lot of movement in the background of the shot due to filming in front of a small car park. This didn't pose an issue until a meeting in the accompanying hall finished, which meant a lot of the cars began to move. Whilst it would have been more ideal to wait for the cars to have moved before filming Sheila's medium closeup, it would have affected the continuity of the scene as the cars were there for the wide shot of the same portion of the scene. Therefore, I made the choice to film with the cars moving in the background. If we had more time with Sheila, we would have been able to film this medium closeup again without the moving cars and also film the wide shot again but due to the limited time, this was not possible. If the budget allows, I would like to reshoot this scene as I feel it affects the visual quality of the scene as the moving cars are distracting and the slightly overexposed shot could have been corrected by choosing a darker ND filter or narrowing the aperture.
- The weather proved to be quite difficult to work with. The bright sun caused some harsh light and shadows to fall on the actors which made for some overexposed shots. I worked around this the best I could by using ND filters to bring down the exposure but it did not change the fact that the lighting still appeared quite harsh on the actors. The only way to rectify this would be to shoot in more overcast conditions or a more shaded area.
- Luke's medium closeup in scene 5 is slightly darker than I ideally would have liked it due to the white sky being in a large portion of the shot. I had to make a call about whether to overexpose the sky in order to have a lighter shot of Luke's face or to expose the sky correctly and have Luke's face slightly more shadowed than I would have liked it. I decided to go with the latter option as I only need to adjust the levels slightly to make Luke's face more visible whilst retaining the natural look, whereas correcting the overexposure of the sky would have been a lot more difficult.
In addition to the shot reverse shots that made up the majority of the scene, I captured a wide shot to establish Luke walking up to Sheila's house and a closeup of the bin bag dropping. If there was less time pressure I could have captured more footage to experiment with in the edit, however, this was not essential as I feel I have captured a good amount of coverage to work with to make up the narrative of the scene.
Due to this part of the shoot taking place when the weather was still cloudy, I did not have to combat the strong sun and the harsh shadows it can create (which is a problem I had to deal with later in the shoot day). This meant that exposing this scene was relatively simple as I was not having to compensate for overexposure due to bright sunlight.
The settings I used for this scene were ISO 500, an aperture ranging between F/6.4 and F/8.2, a shutter speed of 1/50 and an ND filter of 1/4. Due to this scene being lit naturally by the natural daylight from the north west direction, I decided to use an ND filter of 1/4 as using no ND filter produced an overexposed shot where the details within the highlights of the shot became lost whilst using a heavier ND filter produced an underexposed shot where the details within the shadows became lost. I decided against changing the aperture too much to compensate of the overexposure without an ND filter as using an aperture higher than F/10 on the Panasonic creates a slightly soft looking shot due to diffraction through the lens. Therefore, I kept the aperture between F/6.4 and F/8.2 depending on what the shot consisted of. I used the wider aperture of F/6.4 for Sheila's medium closeup as this was not facing into the bright sky - instead this shot was facing into Sheila's house. This meant an aperture of F/6.4 worked well to expose Sheila naturally so that the detail within the highlights, midtones and shadows could be deciphered when lit naturally from the natural daylight. I then used a slightly narrower aperture of F/7.2 for the wide shot of Luke approaching Sheila's house as this shot included a small area of the white looking sky. This called for a narrower aperture as the sky appeared too blown out and overexposed at the wider aperture settings. I the narrowed the aperture further to F/7.6 for the close up of the bin bag dropping to the floor as otherwise the lighter portions of the shot looked unnaturally light and slightly overexposed. The narrowest exposure I used for this scene was F/8.2 which was for Luke's medium closeup shot - I chose to narrow the aperture to this level as a lot of white sky is apparent in the background of the shot. Without narrowing the exposure, this sky looked very overexposed which made the highlights of the footage lose their details. However, due to this narrower exposure, Luke's face is a little darker than I ideally would have liked it - I should have used the reflector in this situation but I had already determined that it would not be necessary for the shoot so I didn't think to get it out. Instead, I will increase the levels of the midtones and shadows in the post production process - I will only increase the levels slightly as to keep the natural look and not lose the details within the different elements that make up the shot. I decided to keep a constant shutter speed throughout the scene as adjusting the aperture appeared to be the better option for correctly exposing the shot - keeping the shutter speed constant also ensure the motion blur within each shot was continuous throughout the scene.
Scene 4
When setting up to film scene 4, we had originally planned to be on the opposite side of the road to the side that we ended up filming on. We had planned to be on the opposite side due to the background of the scene only being a line of houses, meaning there would be less to go wrong in terms of continuity. However, due to the position of the sun at this time of day (around 11 o'clock), I would have been shooting straight into the sun which produced quite a silhouetted look on Tim and Luke which would have produced lower quality visuals. Due to this, we decided to move the scene onto the opposite side of the road as the sun didn't cause as much interference as it did on the other side (although the lighting situation was still not ideal).
Scene 4 was a complex scene to film due to there being a lot of different movements going on. I decided to follow my shot list quite closely for this scene as I wanted to ensure everything was captured to make up the narrative of the scene. Due to Sheila having to leave quite early, we attempted to get to her bit of the scene as soon as possible - meaning the portion of the scene prior to her entry was filmed quite quickly in a minimal number of takes to ensure we got the shots we needed with Sheila before she had to leave. The shots we filmed prior to Sheila's entry were the low angle shot of Tim and Luke looking over the dog, the panning shot filmed from the interior of the van and the closeup shot of the blood splattering on Tim's face as this would need to be the same for the wide shot including Sheila (meaning this could not be filmed after our actress for Sheila left as the blood in the splatter scene and when he is talking to Sheila needed to be the same). Luckily, filming these shots turned out to be very smooth as there was no zooming involved on my part due to the panning shot needing to remain at a constant frame size due to the characters being positioned at different distances away from the camera (so zooming on one character would change the frame size for the other character which would not have worked). This meant that I did not have to do multiple takes to correct my zooms or make them feel more natural as there were no zooms in the shot. I only did a couple of takes of this shot as the director wanted the actors to deliver their lines slightly differently.
Following this panning shot, I filmed the closeup blood splatter shot. We only had one chance to film this due to not being able to control the blood splatter too precisely as it needed to look natural (and if the blood went on the costume, we would not be able to do another take). Luckily I managed to capture this in one take and incorporated a zoom with the correct timings to emphasise the blood splatter. Unfortunately, there was not as much blood as I ideally would have liked to see in the shot (however, that is more due to the amount sprayed at the actor rather than the shot itself) and the actor looks in the direction of the camera slightly as he flinches in reaction to the blood (which can look like he is looking into the lens and breaking the observatory nature of the product even though he doesn't actually look directly into the lens).
Once these shots were filmed, I moved onto filming the wide three shot, the medium closeup of Sheila and the medium two shot of Tim and Luke. The sun for these shots did pose a slight problem as they cast harsh light and shadows onto the actors faces. However, this was the best positioning within the location for the scene as we had previously tried positioning the van on the opposite side of the road facing the opposite direction, however, the sun interfered more in these shots than it did in the shots I ended up capturing. Therefore, I just adjusted the camera settings the best I could to try and produce the most accurately exposed shots. I started by filming the wide three shot as this also acts as Sheila's entry to the scene. I filmed this all at one frame size as the majority of this portion of this scene would be made up from Sheila's medium closeup and the medium two shot of Tim and Luke which would incorporate the use of zooms to emphasise the humour. I shot a couple of takes of the three shot to ensure the dialogue was captured as the director wanted it. Filming the medium two shot of Tim and Luke and Sheila's medium closeup were slightly more complicated to film as Tim touches Sheila with a bloody hand halfway through the scene so this element of continuity needed to be retained between the shots. I worked around this by filming the medium two shot of Tim and Luke first without Tim actually touching Sheila's cardigan with his bloody hand - I then filmed Sheila's medium closeup with Tim touching her cardigan (we only had a couple of chances to get this shot right as we only had a couple of back up cardigans which could only be touched with the bloody hand once) - I then filmed the medium two shot of Tim and Luke again with the cardigan already bloodied so that the rest of this portion of the scene until Sheila's exit has the blood print on Sheila's shoulder. Filming the shots in this way ensured continuity throughout the scene. One problem with continuity that did occur, however, was the fact that some of the cars in the background of the medium closeup of Sheila began to move. But due to the time restrictions and the limited amount of cardigans, we had to film with the cars moving in the background which resulted in quite a distracting shot. This could not be re-filmed as the cars behind Sheila would have moved and affected the continuity between the wide shot where the cars are visible and the medium closeup of Sheila where there would no longer be any cars. The ideal situation would have been to re shoot both the medium closeup and the wide shot but due to the time restrictions and Sheila needing to leave, this was not possible.
Following these shots, I filmed the medium closeup singles of Tim and of Luke after Sheila has left them. These were simple shots to film due to them being in the shot reverse shot style. I only needed to do multiple takes to ensure my zooms were in the correct place to make the most out of the humour within their dialogue. The final shots to be filmed for this scene were the closeup shots of Tim preparing for the surgery prior to the blood splat and Sheila's arrival - this was not ideal as there were a couple of blood splats from the blood splat scene that could be seen in the van, however, these can be cropped out of shot due to filming in 4K resolution.
The settings I used in this scene varied a bit due to the different lighting conditions within the scene (i.e. filming in the darkness of the van and filming in the harsh light of the sunlight). The settings I used were; ISO 500, an aperture ranging between F/6.3 and F/7.6, a shutter speed of 1/50 and ND filters ranging between 1/4 and 1/16. I started out by using an aperture of F/7.6 and an ND filter of 1/4 to expose the low angle two shot of Tim and Luke (along with the previously stated shutter speed and ISO). This worked to produce a good exposure as they are mainly shaded from the bright harsh sunlight - the details of the shot can be seen within the shadows, midtones and highlights of the shot (even the areas where some sunlight creeps through) which will allow for the best colour grade. I then used an aperture F/6.8 with the same ND filter for the panning shot filmed from inside the van. I used these settings as the camera was still pointing in the same direction as the original shot so was being reached by almost the same amount of natural light - the only thing affected the light was the fact that this was being shot from the shelter of the van which added some shade to the scene. I, therefore, widened the aperture to F/6.8 to compensate for this darker look to expose the characters better - I had to be conscious not to overexpose the scene as Luke was positioned out of the shelter of the van so was still being affected by the harsh sunlight so I couldn't widen the aperture too far. For the closeup of the blood splatter I decided to widen the aperture to F/6.3 as Luke was not in shot so I did not have to worry about overexposing him, I just needed to worry about the exposure of Tim so I decided to widen the aperture to increase the exposure slightly to ensure all detail within the shot could be seen. For the wide three shot I kept a similar aperture of F/6.4 but increased the density of the ND filter to 1/16 to compensate for the harsh light coming from the sun. This worked better than narrowing the aperture as I would have had to narrow the aperture past F/10 which would have caused a slightly soft image through diffraction of the lens. I then kept the settings similar for Sheila's medium closeup by widening the aperture slightly to F/6.3 - I did this because the harsh shadows caused by the sun appeared ever so slightly underexposed so were losing detail, however, widening the aperture made the highlights in Sheila's skin look a little overexposed. This should be rectifiable in the edit by decreasing the level of the highlights. This was the shot that could not be re-filmed due to time restrictions and the continuity of the scene, otherwise I would have reshot the shot with a slightly narrower aperture as the detail and exposure of Sheila should have taken priority over the shadows that could be seen. For the medium two shot of Tim and Luke I narrowed the aperture to F/7.2 as the bright sky is visible in a large portion of the shot and this appeared overexposed at the previous wider apertures. This aperture ensures that Tim and Luke are correctly exposed with their skin tone not appearing overexposed like in Sheila's medium closeup whilst also ensuring that the background is also correctly exposed to maintain a high visual quality. This exposure allows details such as the blood on Tim's hands to be seen which is vital for the comedy within this shot. For Luke's medium closeup single shot, I widened the aperture to F/6.7 as the camera was pointing more away from the sun than for Tim's medium closeup single where I used an aperture of F/7.6. These apertures allowed for the characters to be correctly exposed whilst ensuring that the background (especially the sky) was not blown out and overexposed. The final shots were the closeups of the surgical equipment and the preparation for surgery for which I used an aperture of F/7.4 and an ND filter of 1/4. These settings were used due to being filmed in the shade of the van and so called for a less dense ND filter and a slightly wider aperture. This ensured the shot was correctly exposed and all the detail could be seen which was especially important for these shots due to being closeup and, therefore, more obvious if any elements are incorrectly exposed.
Scene 6
Scene 6 was a very simple scene to film due to being filmed all in one continuous panning and zooming shot. Whilst the director blocked the actors, I planned the movement of the camera - including where and when I would need to zoom to reveal the cat lying under the gate. Filming this was very simple as I mainly had to pan to follow the movement of the characters and then the movement of the van before having to pan back and zoom in to reveal the cat. To ensure the camera movements were as smooth and timely as possible, we ran through this scene a few times to capture a few takes. The most difficult part of the scene to film was panning back from the van driving away to the cat and zooming in whilst keeping all of the shot in focus in the different frame sizes during the continuous shot.
The settings I used for this scene were; ISO 500, aperture F/7.5, shutter speed of 1/50 and an ND filter of 1/4. I used these settings as the shot was quite a long shot which meant the bright sky made up less of the shot than for the previous closer up shots where I used a thicker ND filter of 1/16/ Using these settings allowed for a accurate and natural exposure for both the long shot and the zooming close up shot of the cat. I had to be careful with exposing the cat due to a lot of its fur being white and at risk of being overexposed. Therefore, I changed the settings slightly between each take and finally settled on F/7.5 as the perfect aperture for ensuring the highlights, midtones and shadows all retained their detail so give most scope for colour grading in post production.
Scene 3
Scene 3 was the last scene to be filmed due to it only involving Tim and Luke (so we did not need to have Sheila present to film the scene) and it being a relatively simple scene to film as it is made up of mainly a shot reverse shot of Tim and Luke with a closeup of the phone being cut in. I filmed this by filming Luke's medium closeup first, followed by Tim's medium closeup then finally the closeup of the phone. I took takes both with and without zooms as the shots are already quite close in so I did not want to make the shots feel too unnaturally close and invasive - this way we have the coverage to work with in the edit and decide what works best with the rest of the product. This scene will need a lot of work in the post production process due to it being filmed stationary whereas the characters are actually supposed to be driving in the shot - so I will need to add an overlay or an effect to emulate shadows which would fall on the characters if they were to be moving. I had to ensure I did not capture the opposite windows in the medium closeup singles as this would give away that they are not actually driving the van.
I did also film this scene by attaching a fixed go pro to the window screen of the van, however, this would not keep with the filming style of the rest of the product so will not be used in the edit.
This scene also involved filming the dog hit. I filmed this in the way I tested previously in this unit - I filmed Tim's closeup with a jolt when the dog is supposed to be hit. This will then be complimented by the sound design. From my research into The Office and the clip where Michael hits Meredith with his car, the sound design will be made up of Tim's reaction shout, the screeching of the breaks and a whimper of the dog being hit. This will make this jolt more believable as the vehicle hitting a dog.
The settings I used to film this scene were; ISO 500, an aperture ranging between F/6.7 and F/7.2, a shutter speed of 1/48 and an ND filter of 1/4. For the medium closeup singles of the characters I used an aperture of F/6.7 with an ND filter of 1/4 as they were being lit by the natural light which by this point in the shoot was less harsh due to the sun being behind clouds. This meant I used a less dense ND filter as the sunlight was not causing harsh light and shadows to fall on the characters faces. I used a slightly narrower aperture of F/7.2 when filming the closeup of the phone as I wanted to ensure the map was correctly exposed so the full details could be seen as this was integral to the humour of the scene. I used a slightly slower shutter speed of 1/48 to increase the exposure slightly as it appeared slightly dull as 1/50 - however, the shutter speed did not change enough to affect the motion blur of the scene which is important in keeping the continuity of the product. Overall, these settings allowed for a good exposure to work with in the post production process - this is especially important for this scene as the visuals of this scene will be manipulated a lot to make it appear that the van is moving - this meant the highlights, midtones and shadows needed to be completely accurate to avoid losing detail during the manipulation in the post production process.
What went well
- Despite the time pressure and some of the shots not being entirely ideal, all the necessary shots required to make up the narrative of the scenes were captured which means if we can't re shoot, we still have a workable product as all the shots are there (just some lack the visual quality that the rest of the product possesses).
- The continuous panning shot used for scene 6 worked really well - I was worried about capturing this scene all in one shot as I had to pan, zoom and re focus all in the same shot. However, this worked well to convey the urgency of the scene and the panic the characters are feeling in the situation.
What didn't go well
- We only had our actress playing Sheila for a short period of time due to a last minute appointment. This made the shoot slightly more rushed than we would have ideally liked as we had to ensure we got all the footage with Sheila before she had to leave. Scene 5 worked well, however, her medium closeup in scene 4 was slightly overexposed due to the changing weather and the sun producing harsh light and shadows. There was also a lot of movement in the background of the shot due to filming in front of a small car park. This didn't pose an issue until a meeting in the accompanying hall finished, which meant a lot of the cars began to move. Whilst it would have been more ideal to wait for the cars to have moved before filming Sheila's medium closeup, it would have affected the continuity of the scene as the cars were there for the wide shot of the same portion of the scene. Therefore, I made the choice to film with the cars moving in the background. If we had more time with Sheila, we would have been able to film this medium closeup again without the moving cars and also film the wide shot again but due to the limited time, this was not possible. If the budget allows, I would like to reshoot this scene as I feel it affects the visual quality of the scene as the moving cars are distracting and the slightly overexposed shot could have been corrected by choosing a darker ND filter or narrowing the aperture.
- The weather proved to be quite difficult to work with. The bright sun caused some harsh light and shadows to fall on the actors which made for some overexposed shots. I worked around this the best I could by using ND filters to bring down the exposure but it did not change the fact that the lighting still appeared quite harsh on the actors. The only way to rectify this would be to shoot in more overcast conditions or a more shaded area.
- Luke's medium closeup in scene 5 is slightly darker than I ideally would have liked it due to the white sky being in a large portion of the shot. I had to make a call about whether to overexpose the sky in order to have a lighter shot of Luke's face or to expose the sky correctly and have Luke's face slightly more shadowed than I would have liked it. I decided to go with the latter option as I only need to adjust the levels slightly to make Luke's face more visible whilst retaining the natural look, whereas correcting the overexposure of the sky would have been a lot more difficult.
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