F.O'C: Reflection of shoot 3

Location - Dunorlan park

• After school on Friday we walked with the cast down to Dunorlan park in Tunbridge Wells.
• By the time we got there it was starting to get very dark. To save time, we shot as soon as we got into the park instead of walking down to the lake which would have taken an additional 10 minutes, making the footage on the camera even more grainy than it already was.
• Mia and Hamish had a free last so they went and met our male actor early to get some much needed footage before it got too dark.

My house

• I directed and shot the timelapse and this time made sure that once we'd finished the 10+ seconds shot of Anna at the table, we switched to Hamish and Mia playing chess and took the chair out of the frame this time. It posed a problem in after effects when we didn't the shoot before.
• Outside, it was raining. The fire pit at the bottom of my garden was wet and so we replaced them with more however we had to be relatively fast so as they didn't become wet. When burnt, wet wood produces a lot of smoke. Not only would this not look good on camera but it would also get in the actors eyes, possibly harming them and hindering their acting capabilities. At one point Luke's eyes were victim to said smoke but luckily we nearly had all our footage.
• Hamish's camera isn't waterproof (that we know of) and so filming in the rain, albeit it light, was a possible risk and could have potentially harmed the camera. Therefore we attempted to get the filming done as quickly as we could (while getting all the shots we needed). (Post filming, we found that fine droplets of water covered the lens for the end sparkler shots, filling the frame with hexagonal lights; a silver lining from the clouds themselves.
• I filmed and directed the majority of the shots outside and found that the camera had trouble adjusting it's exposure to make details clear. When it did, the result was often grainy. To combat this we brought the actors closer to the fire and pointed their faces towards it so to illuminate their features and expressions.
• In hindsight it was probably a good thing we filmed at my house and around Tunbridge Wells rather than going to Hastings because although we would have taken some great shots in Hastings, we took, in my opinion, ones equal to that in Tunbridge Wells. In addition to this the logistics and fees were far easier to manage.