FMP reflective journal (week 5)

This week was filming week. I started the week by working with the director and the rest of the class to come up with a schedule for the filming days the schedule we came up with was;

Our groups own schedule was

Wednesday AM- Mam Tor

Wednesday PM- Ladybower reservoir

Wednesday evening- Ladybower woods

Thursday AM- Curbar edge

Friday PM Padley Gorge

Filming

On the Wednesday we were driven to Mam Tor for the start of or filming. The first issue that we found was that there was allot more wind than what we were expecting, this meant that the steady cam shot that we had planed we were unable to do and the tripod that we had brought was unsteady in the wind, I opted to bring the smaller lighter tripod as I had to carry it all day. We solved the tripod situation by borrowing another groups heavier larger tripod whilst they weren’t using it. Another issue that we encountered was the amount of people at the location meaning it was difficult to film without any of the public being in the shots, we overcame this by waiting until there were as little people as possible then politely asking the remaining public to move out of shot whilst we were filming. This waiting around for the public to move did mean we ended up running out of time at this location and missed out on being able to get a few shots that were planed for that location. This meant that the final video will be slightly shorter because we had fewer shot than we had intended. The second location we filmed at was Ladybower reservoir. I was really happy with the shots from the beach but there was a problem when it came to shooting them. When I went arrived on the shoot day we only then released that there had been allot of rainfall and there was no beach so we had to move the shoot location further along the shoreline than we had originally planed to get the shots that we wanted. We returned to Ladybower in the evening but went up the hill into the woods to film the woodland scenes, the map scene and the camping scene. I was really happy with some of the walking shots whilst traveling too the camping spot, especially the shots with the map and an unplanned shot with midges in the air and the setting sun beaming through the trees. We arrived later at the camping spot than planed as we took the wrong route on the way to it meaning that it was darker than I had hoped so I had to remove some of the shots of the camp being made up as it was too dark too shoot. Another thing that I hadn’t thought about was how long the walk back too the car was from the location in the dark, we had all brought torches though so it was fine.

This week had the biggest impact on the product out of any other as We actually filmed the scenes this week. The main impacts have been the timing issues meaning some scenes have had to be scraped as we ran out of time whilst filming, I worked around this by making sure I had enough B-roll to fill in any gaps that may be left by scrapping scenes. I think what I’ve done really well this week has been the shots that I managed too get for the final film. I also think that I did well working around not being able to get some of the shots that I wanted.

Definitely the aria that I most need to work on is time management whilst filming but other arias that I could have improved on in my opinion is my composition of shots and planing ahead with equipment as I didn’t check that the ND filter holder fitted on the filter thread of the lens that I wanted to use. The main thing that I’ve learned this week is to plan more for the actual shoot days and planing them down to a higher degree of accuracy (to the hour).

The health and safety sheets were effective because no one got hurt, no animals were disturbed or harmed and no equipment was damaged.

Next week I need to sort through all the rushes with the director and decide on what shots too use and what shots to scrap, research colour correcting in Adobe Premiere Pro and Research different looks and styles that I could go with for the colour grade.