Major Production - Shoot Day Four

This day was much more relaxed than the others as we had got out the way one of the heftiest scene's within our project, the penguin sequence, which was scene 20. It didn't necessarily have a direct and obvious impact but I felt like everyone had a different kind of subconscious feeling towards the approach of the day, in terms of our pace and efficiency. It definitely didn't have an negative impact, more so just a slower approach and making sure we got every shot we needed and Will was happy with the performance.
I think at this stage, everyone knew the hard hurdle had been climbed, so we lifted our foot off the acceleration by, 1%, maybe 2. 

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 4) 

Scene's filmed on this day - Scene 17, 18 - Two of the hallucination scenes.


WHAT -
This day was theoretically quite short as it was only two scenes but the scenes were again very complex to piece together visualy. Scene 17 was Danny's hallucination which involved him being dressed up as a chef and believing he was on a TV show presenting a chef programme. We set the mis en scene and dressed the character accordingly, at the end of this scene we would have a dark monster enter the background of this piece, for this will be the running dark thread throughout the hallucinations, linking them all together. For scene 18 this was Sam's hallucination, a scene where he wakes up in his bedroom with a large smile on his face. He gets up happy as larry, pulls open the curtains, then unlocks the door to be greeted by the monster that keeps entering their hallucinations. It took a full day to film, finishing up at about 4pm.




LIGHTING/FRAMING/MOVEMENT/SETTING DECISIONS
The lighting for scene 17 was quite brighter than usual, I wanted to try and make it look like a studio lit room. So to do this I blasted the tungsten from outside through the window behind Danny, as well as having the LED placed directly in front of him to have maximum coverage of light. So we were only really using one LED light and one tungsten, in comparison to the rest of the shoot we'd been using three LED lights. I also tried to emulate the aesthetic of a studio shoot by trying to record in that way too. So I made sure to set up and use the tripod as much as possible, to have extremely tight shots with no movement whatsoever. As Danny was meant to be a presenter in a TV show, it only felt right to shoot in this particular way, to indicate that he's meant to be a TV presenter. I tried to use a minimum amount of actual camera movement for this specific scene as I felt it was warranted. It wouldn't of suited the scene I personally believe and so did Will. I used my rule of thirds setting quite heavily for this scene as I wanted a nice balance on either side of Danny in terms of subject matter on each side. Macro lens was also used throughout this scene as there were some extreme close ups for this scene, and the auto macro lens really helps accentuate the tone of the shots and reinforces the point we were trying to get across; that he is a presenter for a cooking show. The lighting for scene 18 was quite difficult to get right, as the room was quite tight for space. So we got all the shots from within the room first with the door shut, I'd placed the camera and light right next to it, giving us as much distance as possible between us and Sam. I made sure my lens was at its widest possible lens configuration to achieve that spacious/free feeling when Sam wakes up. For this scene, we recorded handheld as this sequence in my opinion was more suited to this type of filming. It was a faster paced scene, with a more darker and shocking reveal. This allowed me to be a bit more experimental with the crash zooms, and it was a scene which utilised the point of views very well. The point of view shots in this scene work because you can see the fear in Sam's eyes, we made sure that Sam were to look into the lens, as the camera was acting as the monster coming for him. I didn't really need to use many settings for this scene as I wasn't overly concerned with the rule of thirds, or with it looking pretty, I wanted it to be immersive for the audience, to make it an uncomfortable watch. 

f/3.8 
ISO - 600
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Handheld

f/3.2 
ISO - 400
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static

f/3.4 
ISO - 400
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Handheld

f/4.5 
ISO - 320
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static

f/3.8 
ISO - 320
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Handheld



WHAT I LEARNT & EVALUATION


- This shoot day was good for the way I utilised the lights, I feel as if i'm really mastering them now. I'm able to light up the rooms without making myself question the authenticity of the piece.
- Myself and Andrew keep finding ourselves bumping into each other as we're both trying to find the best spots for each new scene, need to do further blocking on the new scenes.
- Each day allows me to think clearer about the next oncoming shoot day, leading me to concentrate more on each of the new scenes that we're about to shoot, which I really enjoy.
- The crew and cast are beginning to feel like a small community, everyone is bouncing off one another, but also I can feel the energy being slowly drained from our bodies. It's been a long few days.
- We forgot to digitalise the footage today at lunch, and this just backlogged everything for the end of the day which resulted in Aimee leaving way later than expected. We have to remember and keep on top of these things as we can't be getting sloppy towards the end of the shoot week!