Filming Evaluation

Scene 1 was filmed on the evening of Saturday the 12th of February by Harriet at her house. Harriet was the camera-man, and her brother the 'unknown' actor. The shooting schedule was used and appeared to be a help, although changes were made which slightly changed the schedule. The props that we used really created the atmosphere that we were hoping for, and the lighting was how we were expecting it to be, although during the rehearsal shot, we realised that shadows were going to be needing more attention, so it would disrupt the piece as little as possible, although some were unavoidable. On the other hand, these shadows added to the anticipated atmosphere. We were also unfortunate to not be able to get hold of a dolly for the opening tracking shot, which would have made it more professional. We tried to overcome this problem by using a office chair (on wheels), but the camera was too low and the shots still came out wobbly, so in the end we were forced to do it hand-held. If we were to film this scene again, that would be a problem that would easily be able to be avoided, and we would have thought about it in more advance. Another problem which we had to adapt to, was that we hadn't got a picture of scene 2 which was going to allow the transition between the two scenes. This was due to bad organisation within the group and which we should have not had a problem with. But it happened, and Harriet filmed as much as she could have, with varieties of endings, as we will have to change our plans about this part of the project in the editing stage, and with many varieties we will have a range of ideas to choose from. Lastly, we thought that the filming would have looked better in one continuous shot, rather than several short ones joined with transitions, which wasn't seen in the shooting schedule. This is where the schedule proved to be unhelpful, and it also proved hard for both the camera-man and the actor to keep focus for such a long period of time, and doing everything as planned in order. This is why we had filmed many shots before we got one sequence that had actually worked, which, if the actor was a group member would have saved a lot of time and effort. However, the final product was close to what we were expecting, and came out surprisingly well for the problems we encountered.


Scene 2 was filmed over two days; Monday the 14th and Thursday the 17th of February, during the daytime in lesson. This was convenient for us as our location for this scene was on the college site, so we didn't have any troubles with transport. However, on the Thursday we came across another group which was recording around the same area as us. Both of the groups worked together to give each other time to film without the other group disturbing them. It was also useful for us as we were missing a character, so one of them kindly stepped in to help us film. The natural light between these two days were slightly different, as were the characters hair(!) which we didn't think about before! This would have affected continuity, but we decided to re-record the filming we did on Monday, again on Thursday, and this went smoothly as we already knew what to film, and how to go about doing this. Another problem we had was the unwanted ambient sound which we picked up. Filming right next to a railway track and a main road meant that we had to try our best to time the shots, at the best possible times. Also, although the rustling of the leaves gave a good effect, it meant that we could hear the cameraman moving which is really unprofessional. However, this was unavoidable and we will have to change this during the editing stage, perhaps by using a soundover. We managed to record background sound if this is the case. Overall, this scene didn't go as well as the first scene, but we managed to get it all filmed and hopefully the editing will allow us to improve it.