Construction Post 3: Reflections on our Main Shoot Session

When shooting in location 1, the school, we had to take some of the following factors into consideration:

• Placement of camera (e.g sticking to the 180 degree rule and 30 degree rule)

Not so much important in this location shoot as it was in the house main shoot session because the main part of the school shoot was of a one shot and not several different shots that need to be edited in such detail that continuity techniques when filming need to be used.

• Constantly making sure the acting is exactly the same in every take
• How much time we had to shoot due to lighting issues as it's still wintertime and it gets dark latest by 5:30 and the school itself closed at 7:00 pm

we wanted all the school shots to look like it was the morning so we needed bright lighting and needed to be finished before it was dark

Lighting at 4 pm at the school

Lighting at 6 pm at school 

• Retaking shots (but varying angles/pans/framing etc.) so we have a lot to work with when editing

For example the one-shot corridor track took approximately 30 takes, taking up most of the time of our shoot, because of mistakes from the continuity of actor movements and because this is one of the most important and eye-catching shots of our opening so had to be perfect. Some of the takes of our that shot can be found below

• Management of actors (since we had a big cast) 

So things like making sure everyone was quiet on set before shooting each scene took a long time. We also had to give the actors enough time to change into their costumes and get make-up on, therefore we ended up starting to film at 4:30 instead of 4 like we planned. Below is a behind the scenes video of us trying to manage our actors during the shoot.

• The sound of the dolly wheels overpowering the sound-scape of the one-shot track

We found, during our test shoot, that the dolly wheels made a rumbling sound due to the friction created between them and the floors. In order to dull out the sound, we taped felt to the wheels and this improved the sound during our main shoot

• Continuity of actor movements

So that editing the shots together will flow well together and look seamless.

When shooting in location 2, the house, there are different factors we took into consideration:

• Decorating Ela's bedroom to look like a teenage boys bedroom, create the right mise-en-scene

Behind the scenes- set design

To the right is a video of the location we had to work with  and how girly it looked before we cleared away indicating a girl uses that room and filled it with more stereotypically boyish things. 

• Framing in much smaller spaces

Because some of our shots were taken in such tight spaces, like in the bathroom scenes (brushing teeth) and fridge scene, which would've been hard for a person operating the camera to film comfortably and with good framing, we used a go pro camera. This is smaller and more compact and helped us achieve the right framing we wanted, even in tight places. 

• Lighting issues

Because we wanted the house routine scene to seem like it was morning, we started filming at 9am since morning produces the best and brightest lighting.

Implementing the changes we decided would be needed from our test shoots

Snagging list-changes for main shoot

Snagging list-changes for main shoot