What want well and what didn't go so well is summarised in this vlog video I captured during the shooting week. I felt by doing these video's it would help me summarise easier what I felt worked and didn't work throughout the day and what could of went better. I've tried to assess my own work and speak about others in the team that I felt worked well/didn't work so well.
(Vlog post-shoot day 5)
What scenes we shot this day -Scene 21, 22, 13, 23, 19.
Scene 13 & 23 - Fan scenes
Scene 19 - Field scene with Ralph, hallucination part
21 & 22 - Raid scene
WHAT-
So we first started off the day by filming scenes 21 and 22. scene 21 was just a warm up to the raid scene, (scene 22) so there wasn't really much to it. The set, lighting and camera were all set for scene 21 as it's another sequence within the dining room. So in that sense everything was ready, however we need to severely choreograph with the actors and reannactment team on how to approach scene 22! This scene took about an hour or so of the day to fully plan out how each officer would storm the house. As Will was blocking out the scenes with them, I was helping Aimee out with the GoPro's, making sure the angles were right and if they were on the correct part of the body. As well as this, the scene was a major pain, as we had the GoPro's on the officers, they would capture all of the rig set up in our dining room scene, so we had to move everything out for the takes we did with the GoPro footage on. Unfortunately one of the GoPro's had ran out of battery and we didn't have a spare, this was only a small hindrance as we got the desired amount of footage from them. After getting all of the coverage from the GoPro's, we set the rig back up in the dining room and continued getting all of the footage from our main camera, the Panasonic. After we got that scene done, we moved onto the field scene, which is a drive away from our main location. We took all of the crew and Ralph out to the field where we shot our final major scene for the day. We had to be relatively quick as the sun was going down and for continuity purposes it wouldn't work if some parts were super bright and others super underexposed. After we completed that scene, we called it a wrap but myself, Callum and Will filmed a few of the fan sequences towards the end of the day so that we could finally tie up all the loose ends and hand Aimee all of the remaining footage the following day.
LIGHTING/FRAMING/MOVEMENT/SETTING DECISIONS
The lighting for scene 21 was not really any different to any of the other scenes covered in the dining room. This was down to the fact that I didn't want to disrupt the continuity of the piece, and as the lighting was at a good and focused level throughout, there was no point of changing it now and I can't make sense of trying to fix something that isn't actually broken. I made sure that the framing and movement for this scene was quite tame, in anticipation for the next scene, I wanted to be building up to it through the use of quite generic shots, lulling the audience into a false sense of security to have them thrown back by the foreboding onslaught that is about to entail. So the lighting for scene 22, as we first had the GoPro's running for this scene, I took all of my equipment out of the dining room, and had them complete the scene from the top about twice with just the GoPro's on. The footage looked good but at times the GoPro's would slide down the back of one of the actors and you'd be able to see nothing. We corrected this though as the shoot went on. I wanted this footage to give the widest possible angle, and it would serve it's purpose by presenting itself as authentic looking footage, so that's why we attached it to the barrel of one of the guns to have a totally real perspective. This footage would also give the sequence that dynamic edge that it needs as it's such a fast paced scene, we need as much coverage as we can get so we'll cut into vast shots making it as chaotic as possible. So after we secured that footage we set back up the Panasonic/LED Lights/Tripod and began the filming process again from the top.
I didn't want to but thought it would be wise to record the scene from the static master shot just in case we needed it to cut back to as a filler, I always made sure to use this shot as it acted as a safety net, in case we missed any shots to cut to. The reason why I didn't want to use the master shot for these scene was because I felt we didn't need to, additionally I felt as if it should of been all handheld. After speaking to Will we came to an agreement on that this scene should be shot handheld as it supports the anarchic & mad struggle the boys are experiencing, so I captured the scene as such. I made sure to get singles of all the characters reactions, and point of views from their perspectives as I felt we need to squeeze every ounce of intensity out of this last sequence as it's our chance to make it as crazy as possible. I thought this scene would be best set on auto-focus but I managed without, and I'm glad I stuck with my decision on that, haven't looked back on some of the footage, the moments it goes slightly out of focus adds to the narratives stupidly chaotic situation and once again allows the audience to submerge their-selves into this state of affairs.
The field scene in terms of lighting was fortunately quite easy to piece together, I set up one LED just incase the sun was moving to quick for our slow paced organising of the sequence with the actors. I brought a reflector too, so we could utilise some of the natural light out in the open instead of using artificial light. The LED light was used briefly, just to balance one side of Ralph's face to the other side that was being slightly overexposed on the other side by the sun. In terms of the framing, this particular scene was one we'd blocked out shot for shot so we were quite confident on boxing this one off relatively quickly. I didn't want to rush it though, as there's no point if it could risk having to reshoot it all over again. We set up the characters in a triangle position, I'd place myself at the bottom of the triangle with my camera lens as wide as it could get to capture the establishing shot. I shot from the top all the way to the bottom capturing the master shot/wide shot from this angle. Then like the rest of the scenes I made sure to get every angle I possibly could, I shot the over the shoulder shots first, from the perspective of Ralph, then Plant B, then Plant A. I was fully aware of the 180 degree rule and made sure of myself not to break it by setting markets in the grass. Finally I finished on shooting all of the single close ups of each plant and Ralph, the tricky part was for Andrew getting the sound, as I was recording him, Andrew had to make sure he was out of shot. In the end we found the solution to this. My record settings that came in super useful for this particular scene were my zebra and peaking levels on the LCD screen of the camera. I was able to tell what parts were peaking/overexposed, and corrected the exposed areas by turning on the ND filter to about 1/64.
After finishing this scene, we knew we had basically wrapped up for the whole shoot week! We just needed to capture the fan moments, so myself, Callum and Will did that. The lighting was pretty formal, using one LED light, shining it onto the roof of our room used to capture this scene. I like to bounce the light from the roof onto the subject because it acts as a buffer, softening the harshness of the LED lights. As we knew these clips were only going to be brief, I wasn't too concerned about any particular movement of the camera, I wanted to make sure however that we had several angles to play around with once it came to the edit, allowing Aimee to make as many changes and choices as she needs to. I utilised once again the rule of thirds setting, this setting is desirable when you want to achieve a composed shot. I felt it was a necessity to have as these fans will be watching from their home in a clean and presentable manner, completely juxtaposed against the conflicting imagery on the other side of the webcam, where chaos ensues the characters, physically and mentally.
ISO - 60
Shutter Speed - 1/60
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static
ISO - 60
Shutter Speed - 1/60
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static
ISO - 400
Shutter Speed - 1/60
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static
ISO - 400
Shutter Speed - 1/60
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static
ISO - 320
Shutter Speed - 1/60
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static
WHAT I LEARNT & EVALUATION
- We took a while to shoot scene 22, I think this was due to choreographing out the scene more in depth with the officers than we first had planned too, this may of slowed down our pace for the course of the day.
- It was an experience to have that many people on set, it was a big juggling act, making sure that everyone is doing their job at the right time and place, it's very difficult so I can appreciate the job Will had must of been really challenging. But he did it!
- I knew that the colour grade was now going to be my next big challenge. I needed to begin research on what will be best suited to this piece and bring it to life.
- I'm not 100% convinced on the coverage we got of the fans, and I don't know if they'll suit our piece but we'll see once we begin the edit!
- The field scene was shot pretty fast and i'm concerned some members of the group may of had their own interests at heart on driving the scene to get finished early rather than completing it when it was meant to be shot. I don't want to regret anything so that's why I would of preferred to wait and shoot it later, but maybe with hindsight we did the right thing, only time will tell!
- The raid scene went well, I'm looking forward to how it turns out in the end, hopefully we got enough coverage on the rest of the cameras to make it short, snappy and chaotic!
