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SHOOT DAY Beneath the Surface
The Day Before… We collected the balaclava from the costume department We sent reminder emails to, Peter whose house we borrowed Clare and Stuart – our main actors We also had to let Stuart know what to wear! (Last minute we had to change one of our actors as he had covid – however, this didn’t affect anything badly)
The Morning… I felt very excited and slightly nervous because I wanted to get things right. I think we were very prepared as we made sure we had all the props already at school or in bags ready to go in the morning! For example, the fake blood and a print off of the shot lists. When we went to the studio at 9am, we had to run through our shot list with the camera technician who helped us during the shoot. We discussed our story again and grabbed all the equipment and props. We got the camera, tripods, lighting – LED’s, fake blood, the vegetables and extra t-shirts for Stuart. Once we arrived at the location, the actors came about 9:15am and we went over the overall aims of their character. After, we started filming some of the shots outside the front door. These were shots of Stuart looking around the house, finding a way to break in. Once the houseowner got home from taking her kids to school we filmed Stu breaking into the house and got on with the rest of the shot list!
The Location I think that the location was perfect because it was on campus so we didn’t have to travel far which was easy for all cast and crew to get there and transporting equipment was easy. The house itself was a family home were people really lived which made it look very real (as it was!). We didn’t have to add any props to make it look better, we just used some of their items already in the house like a chopping board. The only thing we had to change was the kitchen table in the kitchen was poking too far out, so we turned it round so the fight scene was able to take place easier.
Roles on Set I felt like I took on the camera operator role mostly whilst also taking photo’s and videos of the process. I also felt like I directed quite a bit but we all had input of what the characters did. Kitt and Julia alternated on sound. Julia made sure continuity issues weren’t a problem. However, we all got a go with trying out handheld shots during the fight scene and Julia did the tracking shot of Stuart down the hallway. I felt as though my directorial ideas during the fight scene were effective. I enjoyed going through the process of filming the wide shot first, then the close up and then any close up with small movements of the camera to capture all the movement of the character.
Problems? There was another issue with the LED lights reflecting off pictures on the wall. To overcome this, we had to position the lights in other positions. As well as this, we had to move the camera slightly so we weren’t seen in the reflection of the art. Kitt and Julia had to sit on the floor with the microphone so it wasn’t seen. One issue we had was continuity of the vegetables that Clare was cutting. This is because we didn’t double up the type of each vegetable so once it was cut, taking the shot again was going to look different However, we overcame this by starting with the close-up, so that the wide was less noticeable that the vegetable was shorter and had already been cut. We also directed Clare to stand in a specific position so that she blocked the vegetables slightly to cover up the continuity problem. • The only other thing we had to slightly change when filming was a part of our idea. Originally, Clare was going to shoot Stuart in the stomach but we felt it would work better if he was shot in the foot. This made more sense so Clare could interview Stu about who he works for.
Overall… I think our shoot went really well as we filmed all the shots we wanted to and more in about 3 hours. My favourite thing I did was filming the handheld shots during the fight scene and changing the shutter on the camera to make it look clearer because they were new skills I learnt. I also liked directing the fight scene and making it work with the space we had to work with. This is what I’m excited to edit too. Getting to cut between the close-ups, wide's and handheld shots will be interesting to see how it all comes together.
As a group… I feel like we worked really well together. Through the whole process, we always agreed on ideas for the sequence and for shots we wanted to film. The communication on the actual set day was great and we made sure everyone got a turn to do what they wanted to which made everything run quick and smoothly. We all put in a lot of effort to make sure we were really prepared for the day and this paid off well. We all learnt new camera skills, like changing the shutter to improve the quality of shots with a lot of movement. As well as this, I felt I improved my directing skills and became more confident in telling the actors exactly what to do so when I film again, I will have had some directing experience already!
The End of the Day For the last few shots of Stu, we let Clare leave as she wasn’t needed anymore. After this we struck the kit, cleaned the kitchen and moved everything back into it’s original position. We took all the equipment back to the studio and threw away the vegetables and shot lists!
