I planned, what I hoped to be a final shoot, for just after the rough cut screening, as I wanted to use that feedback to help determine what else we needed to film and also what we felt was missing after going through the rushes.
I knew we were going to need to get a lot more of Pam because, firstly she is the main contributor who will be on screen the most throughout the film and also in the interviews she talked about her bond with the animals but we didn't have any evidence for that. I emailed Pam to find out what days would be best for her as I knew there would be no point in going down a day when she was busiest or not around. The crew were informed a week before the shoot date and were all fine with it but between then and the shoot everyone dropped out leaving just me and the editor/sound recordist to go down. I am not an expert on camera but didn't mind taking over the role for one shoot as I had done it previously, the night before the shoot (when I found out she couldn't make it) I asked the cinematographer to upload some helpful information about setting up the camera for me which she agreed to do but ended up not doing so I had to have a quick look at the manual before we went and just work it out as I went along.
On the shoot I asked Pam if we could take a walk around the refuge with her and film her stroking and bonding with some of the animals and particularly the Lynx which she mentions in the interview. While going round with her a filmed her and also asked some previously thought of questions I took down with me and also questions I just thought of at the time. I wanted to make it more conversational style so she would feel comfortable and be more relaxed on camera. Luke had a boom and mic to capture all the interviews and sound separately to make sure they were good quality.
We ended up getting a nice shot of Pam stroking the Lynx that she said she had brought up from a young age and also shots of her feeding and talking to the monkeys.
Unfortunately Pam had to leave by lunch and hadn't arrived back by the time we left so we were unable to capture footage of her working which is what I had also wanted to get because she talks about her health problems and how she struggles to do certain things now so I wanted to evidence this. We have got a little bit of footage we used previously in the last film which is all right to use if we don't get another chance to go down but hopefully we will even if it's just me and the sound recordist again.
Overall I think the shoot went ok as we managed to get some footage that we had aimed to, mainly Pam with the animals and I also got some more shots of the animals, some which were good like a close up of the new silver fox sniffing the lens and close ups of the Wolves and monkeys. The editor also said it would be good to get a moving shot of the landscape outside the refuge so on our way home he shot out of the car window while I drove slowly down the road the refuge is on.
I felt some of it was a bit slapdash as I had not been booked out the right tripods, instead the producer had got 2 photo tripods which you can't pan on move the camera on so I ended using mine which is only very small and light and also broke so a lot of what I did was hand-held or there abouts.
I was unsure of some of the camera settings and because of that I'm not sure it was set up correctly as the memory card filled up very quickly we meant I had to find the nearest shop and by two more cards.
A few of the shots were also a little out of focus or a bit too light and dark as well which I think is partly because I wasn't a hundred percent sure of what I was doing but also when looking through the LCD screen on the camera it's hard to see if the image is right on a bright day as you can't see it clearly enough. I spoke to someone about this and they said that is a big problem with DSLR's and that a way round it is to buy an LCD viewfinder.
I thought it would have been difficult doing everything ourselves but actually I felt it was a lot more relaxed in every sense. I didn't have a crew to try and control so we could just get on with it and I could film what I wanted rather than having to keep telling the cinematographer to film stuff and then missing it from not being prepared.
No comments:
Post a Comment