shoot day - opening sequence

1. SHOOT DAY
Beneath the Surface

2. The Day Before…
We collected the balaclava from the costume department
We sent reminder emails to,
Peter whose house we borrowed
Clare and Stuart – our main actors
We also had to let Stuart know what to wear!
(Last minute we had to change one of our actors as he had covid – however, this didn’t affect anything badly)

3. I felt very excited and slightly nervous because I wanted to get things right. I think we
were very prepared as we made sure we had all the props already at school or in
bags ready to go in the morning! For example, the fake blood and a print off of the
shot lists. When we went to the studio at 9am, we had to run through our shot list with
the camera technician who helped us during the shoot. We discussed our story again
and grabbed all the equipment and props. We got the camera, tripods, lighting –
LED’s, fake blood, the vegetables and extra t-shirts for Stuart. Once we arrived at the
location, the actors came about 9:15am and we went over the overall aims of their
character. After, we started filming some of the shots outside the front door. These
were shots of Stuart looking around the house, finding a way to break in. Once the
houseowner got home from taking her kids to school we filmed Stu breaking into the
house and got on with the rest of the shot list!
The Morning…

4. The Location
I think that the location was perfect because it
was on campus so we didn’t have to travel far
which was easy for all cast and crew to get there
and transporting equipment was easy. The house
itself was a family home were people really lived
which made it look very real (as it was!). We
didn’t have to add any props to make it look
better, we just used some of their items already
in the house like a chopping board. The only
thing we had to change was the kitchen table in
the kitchen was poking too far out, so we turned
it round so the fight scene was able to take place
easier.

5. I felt like I took on the camera operator role mostly
whilst also taking photo’s and videos of the process.
I also felt like I directed quite a bit but we all had
input of what the characters did. Kitt and Julia
alternated on sound. Julia made sure continuity
issues weren’t a problem. However, we all got a go
with trying out handheld shots during the fight
scene and Julia did the tracking shot of Stuart down
the hallway. I felt as though my directorial ideas
during the fight scene were effective. I enjoyed
going through the process of filming the wide shot
first, then the close up and then any close up with
small movements of the camera to capture all the
movement of the character.
Roles on Set

6. One issue we had was continuity of the vegetables that
Clare was cutting. This is because we didn’t double up the
type of each vegetable so once it was cut, taking the shot
again was going to look different However, we overcame
this by starting with the close-up, so that the wide was
less noticeable that the vegetable was shorter and had
already been cut. We also directed Clare to stand in a
specific position so that she blocked the vegetables
slightly to cover up the continuity problem.
Problems?
There was another issue with the LED lights
reflecting off pictures on the wall. To overcome this,
we had to position the lights in other positions. As well
as this, we had to move the camera slightly so we
weren’t seen in the reflection of the art. Kitt and
Julia had to sit on the floor with the microphone so it
wasn’t seen.
The only other thing we had to slightly
change when filming was a part of our idea.
Originally, Clare was going to shoot Stuart in
the stomach but we felt it would work better
if he was shot in the foot. This made more
sense so Clare could interview Stu about who
he works for.

7. Overall…
I think our shoot went really well as we filmed all
the shots we wanted to and more in about 3 hours.
My favourite thing I did was filming the handheld
shots during the fight scene and changing the
shutter on the camera to make it look clearer
because they were new skills I learnt. I also liked
directing the fight scene and making it work with
the space we had to work with. This is what I’m
excited to edit too. Getting to cut between the
close-ups, wide's and handheld shots will be
interesting to see how it all comes together.

8. As a group…
I feel like we worked really well together. Through the
whole process, we always agreed on ideas for the sequence
and for shots we wanted to film. The communication on the
actual set day was great and we made sure everyone got a
turn to do what they wanted to which made everything run
quick and smoothly. We all put in a lot of effort to make
sure we were really prepared for the day and this paid off
well. We all learnt new camera skills, like changing the
shutter to improve the quality of shots with a lot of
movement. As well as this, I felt I improved my directing
skills and became more confident in telling the actors
exactly what to do so when I film again, I will have had
some directing experience already!

9. The End of the Day
For the last few shots of Stu, we let Clare leave as
she wasn’t needed anymore. After this we struck
the kit, cleaned the kitchen and moved everything
back into it’s original position. We took all the
equipment back to the studio and threw away the
vegetables and shot lists!

10. Our Shoot Day Video