Shooting Diaries

We planned our first day of filming for the 18th of January, where we were hoping that the majority of our shots could be captured. We had to make a late change of location for this due to the original setting becoming unavailable. However, the alternative location we found didn't hinder us and still allowed us to create the video we wanted to. In this filming session we realised the task was much larger than first thought, and that the amount of different shots we needed would mean that several more sessions of filmings would have to be planned. One of the main issues we faced to begin with was the lighting and keeping this accurate. Due to our forest location, the lighting of each shot differed and this required us to change the lighting settings such as the exposure, as we wanted the video to use low key lighting throughout. All four. members of our group were needed in the video so the roles of each of us changed each shot. However, for most of this session I was in shot as a character of the video as all three of the 'band members' had to shoot our individual shots. I also had a main role in directing shots for the ones I did not feature in and this required organisation on my part to ensure each shot was structured how we wanted to give the required effect

Our second session of filming was on the 9th February, and a members of the group brought in guitars as we wanted to base the shoot around the band shots that would be included in the video. This was tricky for the group as it took some time for us to get used to acting, miming and playing the instruments. For this period of filming I was usually on the camera due to not having a main acting role and had to make sure all aspects of the shot were correct and suited the video. I was behind the camera for most shots featuring band members playing the guitar individually. One problem we faced in this session was the effects of the weather. Rain had made the ground uneven and I needed to adjust the tripod to ensure that our shots were level. We also had to be careful as there was a lot of standing water so the equipment needed to be handled appropriately.

We planned our third session to be the final stage of filming where we would get the shots involving the sole female character in the video. We also wanted to get any shots that had been missed in the first two sessions so that we were fully prepared to be editing the video in the following week. I took the role of director for this as I wasnt needed in many shots and took control with the placing of actors in each shot, how it would be captured (type of shot/camera movement) and informed them on when each shot was beginning.

A fourth date of filming was needed after some technical issues leaving us with lost footage from previous sessions. With the aid of our storyboards it was easy to estabilish which shots we needed but it did mean we had lost time for editing the video. A major issue we faced was again with the lighting. We were filming much earlier in the day than we had before and we found it too bright compared to our already captured footage and that it did not fit in with the gloomy atmosphere we wanted to convey in the video. However, this problem was overcome by adjusting the brightness settings to make the forest appear much darker than it was in reality. We had to continuously do this for each shot as the lighting would vary for each different location we used in the forest. As this session only involved three of our group, we had to adapt our roles for each shot depending on who featured in it. The others in this session were the main male character and the sole female character and as they required several shots together, I had to shoot and direct from my position behind the character. I used several panning shots which required precise movement with the tripod. I also shot a scene that involved giving an effect that a character was disappearing. For this I needed to shoot and pause at the exact right moment while also directing the characters on when to move and when to stay still.