Reflections of the Shoot

Shoot 1 - Saturday 29th November

What Went Wrong

• Amelia forgot to collect the equipment (tripod and boom pole) from Miss B after her French Oral. Fortunately, she picked it up the next morning and we had it on time for our shoot in the end.
• In our footage, on some shots the microphone picked up mobile signals and this can be heard. We didn't realise this would be recorded - however it is only on some shots that are not too important, and we can just cut them out.
• Planning - we didn't plan our shots out in a storyboard style; instead we just shot from every angle that everyone wanted to and it worked out pretty well. In our sequence we want a range of shots from a lot of angles to give the impression that the girl is being watched, but it was very tedious to shoot the same conversation over and over again! We now realise we need to start drafting storyboards and we are currently doing this in the form of post-it notes on sugar paper, so as to move them around in different orders.
• We couldn't decide whether to film with music from the iPod speakers, as originally agreed, or whether to add it in later. We tried it with various music tracks then disagreed about what song to use - some were too obviously depressing, others too happy. A Radiohead track called "Just" was the best, but after this we decided not to include music as the continuity would be hard to get right. We will deal with it this weekend.

What Went Well

• We managed to film all the shots we wanted for the girl's part, and the footage looks realistic and not too staged.
• We stayed within the time limit we had, even having lunch inbetween!
• All our equipment worked and was used to its full potential - there were no accidents or misplacing of items.
• Costume and make-up looked good. We actually used eyedrops to make Amelia look as though she was crying before every shot, which worked really well.
• Everyone was there on time and left at the same time, and our actor turned up with an open mind.
• We tested the script and found it to be good - it wasn't too cheesey, predictable or over the top.
• We communicated well with each other, and voiced our opinions without needing to be bossy or rude. This came up when talking about the music and everyone was very rational and decisive.
• We always thought of what was best for the group