My Role:
This was the day all our pre-production work finally came together and was put to the test in the actual shooting of our film. I was the director on location and had a lot of tasks I was responsible for. At 9 o clock, I organized all the available cast and crew into one room to apply make-up and allow the producer to give a safety briefing. This took about 45 minutes, and after running through some basic choreography of the sequence we moved everyone down to the filming location. On location, I was responsible for choreographing the actors, and the starting and stopping of the filming. To ensure high quality, I checked the camera shots to make sure we were getting the footage we wanted. I motivated the others around me, and encouraged them to do their best, which to an extent, worked.
The Roles of My Crew:
The other two core members of our team were the producer and creative designer. The producer made sure all the equipment got to the shoot on time, and that everyone had everything they needed when they needed it. This was achieved brilliantly, with all the camera and sound equipment being on location before we even arrived. The creative designer had to make sure all the prosthetics and make-up didn’t get damaged or worn, so continuity remained, and also had to apply the make-up in the first place. A few minor problems were encountered with some of the prosthetics, but all were solved.
Problems:
Unfortunately, our day was marred by problems of varying severity. At the beginning of the day, only 3 of our actors showed up, including the lead. After putting on the make-up and doing the safety briefing, we waited in anticipation for other members of the cast, but none showed up. We then decided to adjourn shooting until later in the day, which on a positive not allowed us more time to choreograph the sequences, and prepare all the equipment we needed. When we finally got down to shooting, we had underestimated how strenuous it would be to have all our actors running up and down the location. This meant we had to take lots of breaks, and it ultimately culminated in our lead actress being sick, and having to leave the set. We then had to find a replacement lead actress which was done fairly quickly and continued filming. Unfortunately, due to our late starting time, we began to lose light very quickly, and had to end the shoot with not as much film as we would have liked. Ultimately, had we had a contingency plan, the majority of the problems could have been quickly overcome. We didn’t plan our day properly and relied too much on people to deliver what they promised without being reminded and hounded by us. Next time we do a shoot, a proper schedule for the shooting and the day will be imperative, as will back up plans, to ensure a smooth and productive shoot.
Evaluation of My Individual Performance:
Overall, I think I did a good job under pressure. Despite all the problems we were facing, I tried to stay positive and motivated around me, which not only helped me keep sane, but prevented the rest of the crew lapsing into despair and misery. However as a director, I did not shoulder enough responsibility regarding getting people together, and should have been more proactively involved in making sure that cast members agreed to show up to the shoot.
What I learnt About Practical Film Production:
During the course of the shoot, I learnt many things about shooting a film. I learnt that the most important thing is to have your cast and crew ready, and to have them happy and productive, or nothing gets done. Most of the work should also been done before the day of the shoot, with planning and scheduling allowing a day to function, without these or proper backup plans, a day can grind to a halt without warning, as we found.
This was the day all our pre-production work finally came together and was put to the test in the actual shooting of our film. I was the director on location and had a lot of tasks I was responsible for. At 9 o clock, I organized all the available cast and crew into one room to apply make-up and allow the producer to give a safety briefing. This took about 45 minutes, and after running through some basic choreography of the sequence we moved everyone down to the filming location. On location, I was responsible for choreographing the actors, and the starting and stopping of the filming. To ensure high quality, I checked the camera shots to make sure we were getting the footage we wanted. I motivated the others around me, and encouraged them to do their best, which to an extent, worked.
The Roles of My Crew:
The other two core members of our team were the producer and creative designer. The producer made sure all the equipment got to the shoot on time, and that everyone had everything they needed when they needed it. This was achieved brilliantly, with all the camera and sound equipment being on location before we even arrived. The creative designer had to make sure all the prosthetics and make-up didn’t get damaged or worn, so continuity remained, and also had to apply the make-up in the first place. A few minor problems were encountered with some of the prosthetics, but all were solved.
Problems:
Unfortunately, our day was marred by problems of varying severity. At the beginning of the day, only 3 of our actors showed up, including the lead. After putting on the make-up and doing the safety briefing, we waited in anticipation for other members of the cast, but none showed up. We then decided to adjourn shooting until later in the day, which on a positive not allowed us more time to choreograph the sequences, and prepare all the equipment we needed. When we finally got down to shooting, we had underestimated how strenuous it would be to have all our actors running up and down the location. This meant we had to take lots of breaks, and it ultimately culminated in our lead actress being sick, and having to leave the set. We then had to find a replacement lead actress which was done fairly quickly and continued filming. Unfortunately, due to our late starting time, we began to lose light very quickly, and had to end the shoot with not as much film as we would have liked. Ultimately, had we had a contingency plan, the majority of the problems could have been quickly overcome. We didn’t plan our day properly and relied too much on people to deliver what they promised without being reminded and hounded by us. Next time we do a shoot, a proper schedule for the shooting and the day will be imperative, as will back up plans, to ensure a smooth and productive shoot.
Evaluation of My Individual Performance:
Overall, I think I did a good job under pressure. Despite all the problems we were facing, I tried to stay positive and motivated around me, which not only helped me keep sane, but prevented the rest of the crew lapsing into despair and misery. However as a director, I did not shoulder enough responsibility regarding getting people together, and should have been more proactively involved in making sure that cast members agreed to show up to the shoot.
What I learnt About Practical Film Production:
During the course of the shoot, I learnt many things about shooting a film. I learnt that the most important thing is to have your cast and crew ready, and to have them happy and productive, or nothing gets done. Most of the work should also been done before the day of the shoot, with planning and scheduling allowing a day to function, without these or proper backup plans, a day can grind to a halt without warning, as we found.
Camera Work and Lighting:
During our filming, we used a Sony PD 170 DVCAM Camcorder, pictured to the left. However, we did not use the attached microphone, but instead used a rifle mic to pick up a greater degree of ambient sound, which was important in creating the atmosphere for our sequence. As our sequence is a zombie film, we wanted lots of movement in the camera shots, to highlight the movement within each shot. To do this, we did not use a tripod for the
camera, and all the shots were handheld. However, we took a good amount
of close-ups, mid shots and long shots to vary the footage used in the final sequence. We only used on general location, but used several different areaswithin our location. We did not used any fixed lighting, and only utilized the available ambient light. This was because we wanted a really natural feel to the footage, as opposed to a clean, clinical style. This turned into a problem however, as towards the end of the day we began to run out of natural light and had to speed up the filming process. Despite this, the lighting looked good when we saw the footage played through and any lighting that didn't work was able to be corrected in After Effects.
Mise - En Scene
Overall, the effect of our product was good an professional. Due to the problems on the day of filming, and location and weather problems beforehand, we had to chnage our script several times. The naturual lighitng provided a natrualistic atompshere, which highlighted the chase sequence and its rawness.
Stills from the Shoot Day
Below are some stills that were taken during the day, showing some of the various processes and other things which were happening:
This picture shows our replacement lead actress. This was taken while we were waiting for news of whether or not our preferred actress could continue with the shoot.
Our zombies turned out to cause some logistical problems, as they took a long time to reset after each take, as is shown in this picture.
Our zombies also got distracted fairly easily. In between takes, while we were discussing choreography or changing the camera settings, they chatted. This made it slower to start shooting again when we were ready, as they weren't.
This is a picture of me doing the sound.
In this picture I was testing the rifle mic
weren't. on one of our zombies, so we could get
the sound levels correct to aid our post-production work.
