Transitions: Shoot day 1 and 2

Day 1 

The first shoot day was a success overall, and although the hotel room location we organised wasn’t as big or luxurious as we originally intended for the scene, we were still able to use it for free and the manager was very nice and accommodating towards us.
Me, George and Connor arrived early to set the equipment up and drop everything off as there wasn’t enough room in the car for all the equipment and to pick Andy up from the station. We picked Andy up and took him to the hotel just in time for Alex to arrive. We introduced both of them and had a quick blocking session. This was a good way for them to practice lines and also start to bounce each-other.

Setting up the track

We had some small technical issues at the beginning; the hotel room lighting wasn’t very good to work with; the shots looked very yellow. We tried adjusting the white balance which didn’t really help that much as it looked too blue. We resorted to adjusting the color Kelvin which helped but overall we took a lot of time sorting the camera out to accommodate the lighting. I really wanted the shots to look clean because it makes it easier to play with colour in post. If the original filming is clean then we can do more with it. Its also better to have more light then no light; cameras operate of light so being overexposed can be fixed in post, being underexposed can be very tricky without losing quality and picture noise/grain was something we wanted to really avoid if we could.

Conor on sound

Once we were all set up for lighting, sound and picture we were good to go. Something George and I learned from the third year shoot we helped out on was how much battery the Tascams drain, and how handy it is to carry a pack of batteries. We brought some batteries for this shoot which didn’t work as well as we had hoped. The batteries kept draining rapidly and we got through sixteen overall, which was ridiculous and we need to invest in a power bank when shooting for the third year. A power bank is a better solution (preferably one with two usb ports) as they can take multiple charges. This was recommended by Ferg and something I will consider for my final third-year project.
The shoot went very well and the eye zoom filming was easy to do and didn’t take much time to set up thanks to our practice test shoot. We did have some issues with contra zoom; the contra zoom is typically used in horror and would be good in adding tension and a buildup of drama. When the door knocks I want dit to be dramatic. The following is a bit of research I did when looking into the contra zoom before filming:

Day 2

Todays shoot was very interesting and a great learning curve for us all I believe. Because we came across so many problems today, we had very little time to overcome them. This is very common in production and something we need to get use to in industry, but the purpose of university is to learn. I feel after the events of today I can deal with most things, and its always good to be prepared for something to go wrong.

The day started out when our main actor playing Stevens dropped out. I was concerned that I hadn't had a response to one of my latest emails so I decided to phone him to confirm everything just in case and he had booked himself in for another job role, and therefore can no longer do our shoot. This was very stressful to hear, but in trying to behave as professionally as I could I told him not to worry, and that I would phone him back should I not be able to find a replacement today and consider rescheduling to another shoot day. Rescheduling really wasn't something I wanted to have to do as we were lucky enough to be able to use the studios carpark at this time (when they have shows coming in we are more restricted and unable to film there). On top of this the other actors have booked today free, so cancelling would alter their arrangements and its difficult matching up another shoot day where they are all free again, especially as Andy has a show coming up soon.






Me and George searched all over and looked online to try and find a replacement actor at the last minute. After really keeping our noses to the ground we found someone who seemed perfect for the role as Stevens. Alex Donald responded to a post Jack put out and reached out to us. He looked really well suited to the part. The only issue was he was very well spoken and Steves is supposed to be cockney. However, we felt this didn't matter too much given this was our own take and bad guys are often cast as being well spoken British people. Take Tom Hiddleston for example. We went ahead and sent Alex the details of the production, script, call sheets and a clip from the original scene we would be re-filming so he would know his character.

So that was one thing sorted but another problem we began to encounter was the rain. This was something we had already planned for in advance as the weather this time of year (April), the weather varies so much. In planning this, Jack got hold of some umbrellas. We really didn't want the weather to affect our shoot continuity or aesthetic. Slight drizzle could be atmospheric but if it was heavy rain we would have to consider a backup plan. Our backup was to film it as though they are in a car between a henchmen. This was a last resort but luckily in the end we didn't have to do it.



Alex interrogating the cast


Another issue we encountered was timing. Because out replacement actor was traveling from South West London, his last train from Maidstone was 10:00. It didn't get dark until about 9:00 and it would take at least 10 minutes to get to the station. The shoot didn't go as well as I had hoped which was mainly due to the time limit we had. Ideally, I would've spent more time perfecting the shots and how the colour was coming through on the camera.