Shooting Day 1

The start if our first day of shooting began with me and Tom meeting the actor, Lucy and getting to know her a bit so there could be more of a fun and friendly atmosphere on set. Unfortunately in the rush of getting to the location since I had all the equipment at my accommodation I actually forgot the tripod, which obviously meant we couldn't use the dolly track either. This was a bit of a set back however we had the shoulder rig meaning that if it was set stable enough we could still get good static shots. The shoulder rig meant we had a nice handheld feel to it though without it being too shaky, more smooth handheld feel. This obviously wasn't ideal but we made the best of the situation.  In the more ideally static shots it wasn't too bad either as long as I set myself in a good fixed position they stayed relatively still.

The camera on the shoulder rig, with the 50mm.

One of the problems encountered was the fact the scene was set next to a large window which emitted a lot more light than I first had imagined. This as a result meant as the sun went behind clouds etc the lighting changed. It was never drastic but I thought it might have been a bit noticeable, however I set the exposure to a set amount so that it was consistent, if I kept changing it then it would have been more of a problem as far as I was concerned and colour correction in post would have been more of a nightmare. I made it so if anything the scene would be too bright, I thought that if this were too happen a lighter image look would get across a more dream like or maybe fantasy idea as opposed to it being under exposed which would have made it seem a lot more brooding, not a mood we were going for in the film. 

Lucy's desk

The sun remained the same brightness however and it didn't get any visually warmer or anything, to make sure we were safe I took a few white balances throughout the day, but it seemed good looking at the display and reviewing a few of the clips when importing it to the computers. 

Here you can see how the light is strong in the background
but not too much to ruin the shot. 

I used all the lenses bar the 85mm. I hadn't anticipated the exact size of the location and when we got there and started it quickly became apparent the 85 would have been better in a bigger location, you needed to be more at distance to get the good shot, and the couple we did line up with the 85 looked a lot better and were much easier to do with the 50mm. The 50mm we used for close ups and insert shots predominantly, but it was very good at that. The only problem I got from that was that the focus depth of field was so bare in a few of the shots where Lucy moved we had to do them a couple of times as it was hard to keep focus, after a couple of attempts though it was pretty good. The 18-55 was used more for the wide angles and was probably the most used lens. 

One of the shots I used to custom white balance

We did about 3/4 takes of each shot to make sure we got it right or had enough to work with to edit it to work in some way for it to work. Where possible we did it from a few different angles too so we had elbow room to play around a bit in the edit. We always used the same lens though, there was talk of trying shots with a couple of different lenses but that would have been too much of a stark change to just cut to, for the continuity of the shot, otherwise it would have looked awful to cut between them.

Test shot for one of the scenes

The storyboards and shot lists proved rather invaluable, and we're always a great point of reference to go back to if we got a bit stuck. It also meant we could tick them off as we went so we knew what we had without having to trawl through the shots in the camera individually. This is something I'd not done properly in my other projects so it was a relative god send having something to refer to and is something I'll definitely focus a lot more time on next project. 

The doodle wall set up

It was just me Tom and Connor at the shoot, no one else could make it for various reasons, so Tom stepped in as sound recordist. It worked out having fewer people on set too due to not having a huge location to shoot in, it meant we could all move easily and there was no risk of people getting into shot. The only problem this presented was that me and Tom had to bring all the equipment to the location just between us two, which was a pain, but bearable. 

At the end if the day we also recorded the monologue over the top of the scene while I got some insert shots of the games provided my Tom and drawings provided by me and Connor. My drawings were much worse than Connors due to my lack of artistic ability, but this worked as sort of a comedy moment so I made sure the contrast of the photos was in shot. Little moments of comedy are something quite big in comic book films nowadays and this worked out to be our own little subtle way of doing it as the idea is tenuously based on comic book films but not overtly. 

Most of the shots were quite stationary and fairly simplistic pans, focus pulls etc. We just wanted to make sure we had plenty of them so we not only would have enough for the story to work but enough to be able to drag out the sequence or cut it to last less time so we can hit the 5 min specification in the brief. 

What was also helpful about the day shooting was that the location was so close to the second location where we were going to shoot the fight scenes so we went down there and scouted it out allowing us to plan a bit more for the bigger shooting day.

Shot from the location recce for the second day shooting

The team selfie for day 1 of the shoot.