Filming over Christmas Break - John Hodge

We have finally managed to get some footage without any technical errors or technicalities being overlooked - the film is in much lower quality than it was before, but this was unavoidable as no one was available to pick up a camera on the last day of college (with trains being cancelled across the board). We stayed in Brighton from roughly 9am to 3/4pm capturing as much footage as we could during the day. The following are pictures with annotations of what we were doing, what difficulties we might have had and any other problems that might have occurred. (the annotations correspond to the pictures above them.)

Our first problem came with the camera we were originally going to use. It was borrowed from Dom's girlfriend and none of us had used it before. It would start filming then stop automatically about 5-10 seconds later without any buttons being pushed. The memory card had been wiped prior to filming, we had cycled through the settings for about fifteen minutes trying to find something that might be causing it - in the end, we opted for using a lower quality point and shoot camera.

Sorting out the angle for the opening shot - this had to, in our eyes, be perfect and match the previous footage we recorded. The previous footage was to be used in comparison to this dark, dismal day and allow for some comedic narration from the main character. "This is what the weather could have been like - but, as usual on my Monday mornings, walking to work is like this." or something similar. We will be finalising the script soon. 

Myself (left) getting in shot while Dom and Josh (both right) check the framing and smoothness of the pan.We wanted the protagonist to be looking out onto the beach as though he was looking for something in the horizon. We also wanted to try and portray how he's looking for something new, but he's not sure what it is yet. He's had the same job for a while and is trying to take as many opportunities that come to him, whether that be to choose to get up early and go out a bit before work, like he does.

Quickly checking white balance before we start the shoot - we didn't want the same problem as last time! Looking back on the footage it seems like we successfully kept the white balance in check throughout the entire shoot, which is a relief.

It took us a few attempts to get the opening shot pan as smooth as we wanted it to be. The tripod would sometimes get stuck when we tried to rotate it, even if we had loosened it as much as far as it would go. Soon, we found a spot where it didn't hit this "bump" and were able to get this shot done.

Dom testing the the camera rotation - the job of filming alternated between Josh and Dom a bit while we were there. I could only be in front of the camera while filming, though. A few times we've swapped myself with either Josh or Dom so I could check what the shot would look like behind the camera so I could get a say in where to point and how to pan.

 Shot from the path below down by the beach looking up at us capturing the opening shots.

I used the blue ring that held the wooden bar in place to my left in order to keep my place in the scene each time, to try and keep continuity and not jump around in the frame. Last shoot, we were more to the left, but the problem with the original placement was that there was a large metal pole blocking the left part of the frame. Moving to the right was a good choice in retrospect, as we could see the much more scenery and not have anything obscuring the audience's vision.

I can be seen (ever so slightly in the thumbnail) about to be walking down to Josh who is lying just behind the railing. We tried many ways to get the shot where you get a close up of the hand hitting the rail but, in the end, this ended up being the easiest way.

Checking my path walking over the camera. Dom can be seen looking down to see if I am keeping in frame and to tell me if I'm veering too far to the left or the right.

Filming a bit of the waves before we film the protagonist by the sea. Most of the film consists of following the protagonist on his journey to work, and where he goes before hand to try and shed a positive light on the day rather than heading straight to the office and nothing more.

Checking the shot / angle / framing. Dom needed to know where I was going to start and where I was going to end up in the frame so he didn't follow too far or jolt to a stop.

Same as above.

Doing our long take of people walking around a bend in the pathway. (can be seen better in the below shots.)

We tried to act nonchalant about filming this, whenever we'd been obvious about filming people refused to pass or went around the shot. Thankfully, this worked and allowed us to film people walking by.

These two gentlemen stood in the shot for a couple of minutes before moving on - not what we originally had in mind, but it could be used. I walked past about half way through, with this being my journey back to the way I came in, and so did Dom and Josh in order to add a few extra faces walking through.

Standing like a soldier in frame to make sure everything was angled correctly. I was going to briskly walk up to the camera, look around and finally spot the girl who is to the right of the protagonist.

This is the location for our final scene, where the protagonist finally comes face to face with the girl.We thought this would've been perfect for a meeting place for the two characters. We originally had planned to film this at night, but we were pressed by time and decided to just do it in the lighting we had. We would've had to have waited around an extra two to three hours before we could get remotely any darkness.

Once again checking white balance before we proceed.

Discussing the ways in which we could construct this shot and where we wanted to point the camera and have the characters in frame.
 

Getting into position to half walk half jog into frame. At this point, the protagonist has seen her more than once and is looking to finally talk to her.

Filming the girl the protagonist meets. In this shot, you can see a very crucial prop to our story that links the two characters - the camera. The girl takes a picture of the fountain and looks at the shot just like the protagonist was doing with his hands.

 
Checking the framing of the second shot with someone other than myself so I could see the effect.

A shot of the fountain from the girl's point of view.

Discussing with Josh how he wanted me to come in and how he wanted me to act like - we'd tried a few times but my facial expressions and walking didn't seem to match the situation.

Overall, we feel very pleased with the footage we've gotten out of the day. It's lower quality than we'd like it to be, but at least we have something to work with after the second time filming that doesn't have a huge flaw that ruins all of the footage. If we fall short on footage, we plan to add some scenes inside the protagonists work place, perhaps with a conversation between himself and his boss. Using this we can portray his work place and how dull it is, and also add a space between seeing the girl and finally meeting her. We're currently putting together a rough cut and will update the blog with results on current length of the film, what we may need to change and any other ideas we have.