Filming Session

          In February school half term we thought it would be the best opportunity to film our first lot of scenes for our trailer as we could spend a whole day filming to get most of it done and maybe completed. We found it hard to choose a day that we could all make due to work commitments but in the end we chose a Monday as the variety of us were free. For the first few hours Jade was not able to make the filming session due to working so Sarah and I continued to film the first part of the scenes with Georgia and Jim who were taking part in our trailer. The first location we chose was down the dockyard in Chatham, we thought this would be a suitable place as its very romantic looking with the river in the background scenery. When we got there Sarah and I set up the camera and tripod ready to film but we had a bit of trouble getting the camera straight and it was at a slight angle but in the end we managed to screw it on properly. We began to film many different scenes and told Georgia and Jim to be natural as they were already a loved up couple. However they were slightly shy at first so Sarah had to stage them in correct positions and guide them what to do. A problem that occurred during the film was the weather as it was very cold and windy; due to the wind it created more noise when filming. However in our trailer we don’t need the actor and actress to speak so we can just mute the filming.

          The next location we went to was still in the dockyard but we found many different setting to film for example we used a bench, staircase, gardens and a river. Most of our filming was very natural and Sarah and I recorded most parts as we didn't want to miss anything. Due to the weather we were unable to do costume changes for the people starring in our trailer, we were disappointed at this because most of our filming was in the same location and the same outfit so we are hoping to film again on another day so we can add more scenery in to our trailer.

          After we had finished at dockside we then went to meet Jade as she had finished work. We showed Jade the filming that we had done so far and she seemed very pleased. After we picked Jade up we all went back to my house to film several more scenes, such as the bed scene and the kitchen. The next problem that we noticed was the lighting in the bedroom, as the day was now later it began to get gloomy. So the lighting affected our filming and created a slight fuzz on the filming, this is something we need to overcome when editing on Final Cut or possible re-film another day. The bed scene was fairly easy as we had to just film a few seconds on each clip of them in different clothes and sleeping positions so that we are able to speed up the filming when editing. We had to use a step ladder for this part of the filming as we wanted to vary our angles and use a variety of different shots, so we used the step ladder to create height and we were then able to film some Birdseye view shots.

          In this filming session we used a variety of different equipment this included a Panasonic video recorder which was my own. We chose to use my video recorder and most of the schools were booked up by the time we wanted to use it. Therefore we resulted to using my Panasonic camera as we thought it would be similar to the school if not better quality than theirs. Another piece of equipment was the tripod as we needed this to keep the camera steady on so that our filming was not shaky at all. However the tripod was broken and we had to use sticky tape to fix it which did the job for most of the day. In our filming we also used some props such as mobile phones for the texting scene and wine glasses for the kitchen scene. By using props it helps to add more interest to our scenes and adds more real life to it.

          Overall our filming session went very well and Georgia and Jim were very patient with us and did everything we wanted them to do. As we worked together as a team well we managed to film most shots that will hopefully be enough to film our trailer but we may need one more film session so that we can changed the locations and add in more clips so that it looks like different days.


Filming session 2
 

As we needed more shots for our trailer to improve we decided to do more filming. We began by filming down riverside as we thought the location of the river would look good for the voice over part in our trailer with the character looking out towards the river. This worked well until the video camera ran out of battery, so unfortunately we had to stop filming and go back to school to borrow another camera. We chose the HD flip as it had plenty of battery. Once we had got the camera we went down the park to meet Jim so that we could film him skateboarding for more natural shots in our film. Jim was embarrassed at first to skateboard on his own in front of us all and the camera so it took some persuading but in the end we managed to get some footage of him. The last filming session we did was in the evening on the same night. We waited until it got dark in the early evening so we could film the part where Jim beats up someone as it would look better with the dark atmosphere as it will make the scenes look tense. So Sarah, Jim and I went to the woods located near my house and began to film the next part. As this was our last filming session we experimented with a variety of camera angles such as below, above, and from the side and many more. This footage went well but it got dark extremely quickly which could be a problem when we watch the footage on the computer.

Overall i think all our filming session went good and to plan and I am very glad that we added in extra days for filming so that we had plenty of shots to finish our trailer. Even though we came across a few problems we managed to overcome most of them with our great team work.