Transitions: Shoot day

On the day of the shoot, which was postponed originally and moved to the date of 8th May, we met up at the shooting location which was my house.

Callum and Aimee had picked up a few of the actors, whilst the other member of the cast made her own way to the filming location. We had set the time of initial shooting to be for 9am. We roughly started shooting at about 9:30am due to traffic delays etc, but as we had already blocked out the majority of the script on our shoot day, we were extremely efficient as a team and only really were waiting on the actors/actresses to be comfortable with the script. 

(Shoot day)

As the blocking had been done, it was just down to how the actresses/actors were delivering the script and their general performance that needed to work now. We'd run through shots, i'd recommend some spontaneous shots that i felt may work, trying to capture the rawness of the tone we were going for. Overall the shots up until the scene where we come back from outside, (when will has just been taken hostage), i felt i had done relatively well, listening to the director and capturing what was asked of me, and giving my own creative input too. It came to most definitely the defining moment of the day, in where Oliver (director) wanted a whole one shot sequence, but to capture it, i had to swivel/pan the camera on the tripod several times, i struggled immensely trying to get this shot as the movement was technically very challenging. It took us about 7-8 takes, and if it wasn't me who had messed up, it was one of the actors, and if it wasn't them, it was the lighting. 

(Attempt 1000 of pan movement)

After eventually capturing the pan shot, which was the main shot of the sequence, we then moved onto wrapping up the rest of the shots which was pretty straight forward as they were just MCUs, CUs, singles and doubles. With this script being quite a heavy dialogue based script i knew that i had to liaise with Oliver to get the best out of the scenes, creativity wise, so we could make it as engaging and aesthetically pleasing as possibly. I felt with the team that we had, we all contributed massively on the shoot day and it went pleasantly well. There may of been a few disagreements with certain shots but that is to be expected when we all have different visual interpretations of the script and how it should be fitted together. 

As we filmed chunks of the script, getting through it segment by segment, the SD card would be passed to Aimee who would then quickly put it on her laptop to begin the edit immediately, this was due to time constraints and to maximise our length of time we had on the post-production side of things. I'd then get the SD card back, format it and continue with the shoot. 

(Cast)

Some of the issues that we had on the shoot day were not having one individual specifically monitoring sound, so looking back on the footage, we've discovered that there is a relatively low humming noise coming from an unknown source. This is evidently a big issue but thankfully we'll be able to rectify our mistakes in the post-production side of things, however i know it shouldn't of happened in the first place. Also sorting out the white balance in such a terribly lit room is such a pain, that took a good 10-15 minutes to get to adjusted to an acceptable tone. However again we will have to colour correct it in post as it was slightly off on the skin tones, creeping more towards the yellow side of things, this became an issue as we needed to go outside to shoot a piece of the sequence that forced us to, so readjusting the white balance to outdoors, seemed to work pretty well, but then going back in was a nightmare to readjust and that took for what felt like 20 mins. 

I've learnt that you've got to get to grips with the white balance sooner and have an overall better understanding with it and colours/tones, as it'll be evident to everyone when your piece of work is finished. Lighting is also a element that needs serious attention, care and concentration on to really maximise your creative output and the aesthetic that you wish to capture. Finally, nailing my camera movements, that will only come with constant practice, determination and competence. I'm pleased with how the shoot went, but there are some shots within the sequence that i wish i could re-shoot, but that's the nature of the beast and ultimately why you have to get it done to the best of your ability the first time round, no second chances.