Details about shoot days

My role in the group is costume therefore many days before the shoot day I routed through my dad’s dark coloured clothes just in case Sophie’s dad didn’t have the necessary clothing. Additionally due to Jess not being here for the shoots days I also took on the role of preparing props, for example I purchased a rough looking bag which would be used in the third and fourth scene. I believe that as a group we prepared very well, for example during lesson time and in our own time we created a list of shot types that each scene was going to use as well as preparing the set before the actors arrived so when they did arrive we could begin shooting near enough straight away.

We decided that to create a better picture, we would use Sophie’s camera therefore Sophie took a managerial role of using the camera but me and Jake still contributed to the camera work, for example when shooting the over shoulder shot the tripod was unfortunately not high enough causing difficulties. We then decided that we should attempt to have Sophie holding the tripod of the floor. As she was holding the tripod with two hands, to make it steadier, she could not zoom in or press the record therefore I helped her do this by flicking the zoom in and out button and also the record button.

As I have stated in previous posts, I took a managerial role while shooting scene one. I thought that the shooting of this scene went incredibly well making the process quick. However, I stated my idea to Jake and Sophie about how we should shoot from different angles and we should range the positioning of the camera. This idea then lead to a decision on what footage out of a number of clips, for example during scene one Rick is seen to send a text and I decided that the footage we should use should be the one that covers Jake (in the car boot) more to make it more tense.

An obstacle in which I and my group had to overcome was the weather. For example, on Tuesday we began filming at 12:00pm when the weather was ok and the lighting was bright but by the time we arrived at the astro turf the weather took a turn for the worst, it began to rain heavily. This then meant the lighting darkened and the location was wet which was a major disaster for us as when Jake receives the text it would be obvious to the audience that he didn’t actually receive the text at the same time as the others because when shooting Nathan and Jack the pavement is completely dry and the lighting it very bright, when its meant to look as though all four of them received the text at the same time.

Throughout the days we all stuck to the roles we were given, for example I concentrated on what ‘Rick’ was wearing, Jake took photos of the location and Sophie took charge of the camera. However as stated previously I took on the role of props as Jess was unfortunately not here and luckily we did not need makeup in of the scenes we filmed. 

When it finally came to editing the footage we had got we noticed a few mistakes, for example the times on each of the phones.

In order for the audience to understand the opening sequence it is meant to seem like the four boys receive the mysterious text at the same time but when we zoom in on the phone the times are different on each one showing that they obviously didn’t get the text at the same time. Additionally as a group we decided to leave filming Jess’ scene until she was back meaning filming will continue on Sunday 2^nd March and Monday 3^rd March.

The preparation I have done for this reshoot is online shopping of black clothing and look through my dad’s clothes as Mark (Rick) is wearing a dark green jumper which advertises a roofing company and also white trainers, I believe this is because he didn’t have the necessary clothing or I didn’t communicate my costume idea fully for my group to understand therefore I will continue to research online for the suitable clothes and show it to my group to make sure they fully understand my intentions. Furthermore as a group we have made a note of every mistake we have noticed and how we intend to overcome this on Sunday and Monday, so we don’t make the same mistakes. The places where we filmed will stay the same as we all agreed that they were suitable and were what we expected.

What are the next steps?
On Tuesday after the re-shoot we will begin the editing process. It is clear within the group that some of us are better at editing than others therefore we have decided to work together on editing but allow some of us to take a managerial role until the others fully understand editing. We will use the Final Cut Pro X programme for editing our film.