Account of shoot day

I believe our shooting day went very well, I was very happy with how well the group worked together and how well our actors performed. The day before our shoot we decided to transform the media room from this:

to this:

This was not an easy task, a lot of heavy lifting was involved, luckily due to pre-organisation there was not a lot of hassle in getting the props we needed. The computers and phones were provided by the IT department and the chairs and walls were provided by the media department, the other bits and bobs like photos, files and things for the walls, we bought in, or we got from various places in school. By the end of this we were very pleased with the transformation of the media room, so this meant that when I woke up the next morning I was relaxed, and not panicked about building any sets, as for the ballet part  all that is needed is a black room.

After breakfast, when it came to shooting, we started a little later then planned, this was because when we looked at our office room again, we thought it could use a few extra things like a map and fire-hazard instructions to make the room come to life. Also we had to do the make-up for our ballerina, this was done by Elina and we had not considered how long this would take, but her make-up needed to be quite complex and specific. Once this was done, it was worth the slight delay as Philippa looked stunning, exactly the way I pictured she would look. 

As I previously mentioned, our set was very plane, just a black floor, closed in by black curtains. The only thing we needed to do was tidy up the floor a little as we were one on the last groups to shoot so the floor was a little knackered. So I went and got a broom to get rid of on debris on the floor and Bex got a mop to polish it up. Once this was done, the room looked exactly the way we wanted it to and we were ready to begin shooting.

When it came to shooting, Luke gave us a little recap on how to work the camera. Then as a group we decided that we pretty much want all of our shots to be in slow motion, as this really makes the clip beautiful, so Luke set the camera to slow mo and we started to shoot.
Initially, I filmed, Elina was focusing on our actress and her needs, as it was cold in the studio and she was only wearing a leotard and toutou, then Ned and Bex focused on continuity and deciding what should be shot next, and weather we needed to re-do a shot, as they watched every shot being played back on a plasma TV.


This worked really well and we got some great shots. We then switched roles, with Bex looking after Philippa, Elina and I doing continuity and shots and then Ned went up in the scissor lift to do some birds eye shots.






I personally really enjoyed the filming, and Luke commented on the fact that I was quite good at it, and I got some good shots whilst doing it.







A problem we had during the day was repetitiveness, we became concerned that we were doing too many of the same shots, and when we edit we were not going to have enough verity of ballet moves to choose from. To solve this we asked for Philippa's input, to see if there were any ballet moves that she could suggest, fortunantly there were loads, and she did them all for us and we shot all of them which now means we have loads of footage to choose from. I think that the ballet part of our shoot was the most successful because we got all the shots we wanted and when we watched them back, they were perfect, exactly what we imagined. Also Philippa was such a great actress/ballerina to work with, she is very talented and very patient which made her a pleasure on set. 

I enjoyed instantly watching our footage back on the TV as it automatically went into slow mo, and this gave us a real sense of what our final producted is shaping up to be, which was really exciting so it just gave myself and my group the drive to keep shooting as we were getting such good footage! In the edit I am really looking forward to working on the transitions between the shots as this will make the whole thing flow into one long and indulging clip. 

Overall, I belive my group worked really well together and because of this we were able to have a really successful day of shooting. Thinks I would do next would be, although I was satisfiyed with our orginisation, I would make it even better, I have learnt that orginisation is the most important thing as it can make or break a thriller. For an example we wanted a white leotard for Philippa, but we got the wrong colour by a mistake, luckly it didnt really effect anything and we were able to shoot a thriller as planned but we all agreed that a situation like that, if worse, would be devistating. 

Shooting Schedule

On Friday the 25th, our filming day, we plan to arrive at 9:00am in the studio along with the media team, we will then make sure that everything is in set for the oral discrete sequence (ballet sequence) our actress Phillipa Barrett, our ballerina, will arrive at 9:15am so that gives us 15 minuets to prepare everything, e.g costume and lighting.We will then start filming at 9:30am/10:00am depending on how long other things take. We will then hope to finish our title sequence at 12:00pm.

Once we finish at 12:00pm we will then move from the studio to the bedroom where we are going to film the police office scene, as this room will have already been prepared, we are just going to double check everything in there with the media team to see if we need to make any alterations before we shoot, this should could take up to one hour, depending on what may or may not need to be altered. We will then take a short lunch break from filming, we will start shooting at 1:45pm. We will then film until we have all the footage we need, including re-takes which will then take us to about 4:00pm.

After we have filmed everything, we will spend the rest of the day taking down the set, collecting costumes and putting away any props that we have used.

Props & Costume

We started of by looking online for the things we needed but then Phil advised us to and see Alistair who is in charge of the theater departments props and costumes. So we went and spoke to him, giving a list of things needed for our thriller:  

As you can see from this picture there was not many things that we needed to order and pay for as most of the required props were already available via the school. However some props Alistair did not have so we had to ask different departments within the school to get; a water cooler, coffee machine which we can get from the kitchen and a few more file cabinets which we can collect from various classrooms.

The only piece of costume that we have an issue with is the tutu for our ballerina as she doesn't have one of her own that is what we require, so it is up to us to sort out a costume for our ballerina, I have actually been put in charge of this task, so I have been looking at various websites looking for our ideal outfit, but unfortunately this piece of costume is generally quite expensive and this was the cheapest one that fits out requirements:

As you can see, it is fairly pricey so, but we feel that it is worth it, as this is exactly what we require, we will get in white to add to the innocence of our ballerina, so we will go ahead and purchase it from http://www.dancedirect.com/uk/ unless we find something similar for a cheaper price.

Change of office location

Today we decided to alter the location of where our office scene would take place, we thought that building a set to create and office scene wouldn't make it realistic enough as it wouldn't give the characteristics of an office that is being frequently used with marks on the walls and slightly worn down objects and carpets. So we decided to shoot the office scene in our media classroom, which we thought had a lot more character and would make a more convincing office. By moving out the tables and removing all the items off the wall we can recreate our classroom to look like an office, by putting in three desks with computers on and personalizing each desk to give an idea of the character working behind it, also we will put things up on the wall, like missing persons pictures and mug shots. Overall we think this change of location will be hugely beneficial to our thriller, and it will also provide more shooting time on the day as the office can be prepared in advance.

We don't want the office, to be just any old office like this one as it just looks like a call center, we want it to have a police/detective vibe.