Filming Diary (03/12/2014)

I've decided to keep both a written and video diary of the filming process, recording any problems which occur at the time. This will be updated as I go along.

DAY ONE
03/12/2014
Green room

Shots filmed: 25, 26(a,b,c), 27(a,b), 28, 53, 55(a,b), 56, 58

Today I filmed some of the shots set in the green room and overall it went quite well, however there were a few problems which may have effected the quality of some of the shots. This means (depending on the footage) we may have to go back and re film certain shots. 

I asked my friend Jodie to come to the green room with us because she is a film student and so is familiar with the equipment, having used it before. She quickly went through basic things such as setting up the tripod and framing the shot correctly before we started actual filming. This really helped me to conserve time as without her guidance I would probably have wasted a lot of time figuring things out. 

I started off by filming the lip sync shots because I thought these would be quite simple to do. I got Kate to stand against a black curtain and set the camera up in line with her. I then tried to adjust the lighting in the room because it was affecting the shot however this proved difficult. The lighting equipment tended to cause Kate's face to appear really bright on the camera and even after numerous adjustments it was still causing problems in the shot. Due to the lack of time I adjusted it to the best of my ability and began filming. However when viewing the shots on the camera the image didn't seem to be affected greatly, therefore the shots may be usable. When I have the opportunity I will review the footage on a computer and see whether I am happy with the quality, if not I will schedule to re shoot the shots. 
Also causing a minor problem was the fact Kate was quite quiet when lip syncing which could possibly make editing difficult, particularly pairing the lyrics with her mouth movement.

Once the lip sync shots were complete I went on to film the other shots. I started with the pan/movement around the girls head however this also was quite problematic due to lack of suitable equipment. For this shot to work well I would have needed a camera dolly or something similar but this isn't available at college, therefore I had to improvise. I tried 3 different methods to see which worked the best. To start with I tried attaching the camera to the tripod and keeping it still whilst Kate turned, however the effect created was not how I had imagined and I didn't really like the look of the shot. I then decided to try doing a hand held shot with the original intended movement which worked quite well however the shot was slightly shaky (which is to be expected). This decreased the quality of the shot and so I tried a third method. Finally I tried attaching the camera to a dolly track and holding it at head level whilst moving around Kates head, which worked surprisingly well but often resulted in things from the background appearing in the shot. Overall I found this shot very difficult to film and although I haven't been able to view the footage properly yet, I think it might need to be shot again. However I do believe that now I have experimented with different methods I have an idea of the best way to film the shot and it is just a case of getting the right technique. Therefore I will schedule to film in the green room again in the near future and if I am still unable to capture the shot I will change it to something else. Despite these problems the rest of the filming went fairly well and I am excited to review the footage and begin to edit it. 

With the limited time we had allocated (1 hour) we were unable to do test shots in preparation for our next filming session so in my next media lesson I plan to borrow a camera and do some practice shots with a class mate. I will practice panning, tilting and zooming in particular and if I have time I may also do a practice lip sync.