Fiction Adaptation: Shoot Day - 5th Dec

Yesterday, I filmed the fiction adaptation piece in Maidstone. We met at Ida's house as that was one of the locations and this would allow for easy set up. Troy and Imogen met us there. I briefed each member of the cast about their characters, to give them more depth than the script could provide. I also gave them the schedule for the day and when and where I wanted to film. We set up the equipment in the kitchen where there was plenty of space. In terms of the schedule, I filmed the flashback scene including Imogen and Troy first, using the street outside for this which was very quiet with plenty of space on the path. I decided to film this section handheld as the characters were walking forward and I wanted to be able to gather a few close ups of their expressions that I could cut to. However, after looking at my footage I realised we hadn't put the rode mic on and so this scene unfortunately has no sound. However, I plan to edit in some sound from another scene and possibly find some road sounds to give it a realistic feel.

We then moved onto the bedroom scenes. These were relatively straight forward to film, however, I had a few problems with lighting as there was only one window and it was very sunny providing quite a lot of glare. We played around with various options as I had booked out a lighting kit which did allow me to light Imogen's face separately without having to rely only on natural light. I also had a few space restrictions when filming inside which was expected with a bedroom. However, I got round this by doing a few handheld shots for close ups and organising the space a little better to give me more to work with. The final location for filming was at Maidstone Riverside which I had planned to do last. We arrived and set up the equipment, choosing a bench which was in the quietest area to avoid obstructing the path for the public. This scene was the most comfortable to film as I had plenty of space and could experiment with the shots I had planned for the shoot. 

In reflection, the shoot day was successful, allowing me to finish on time with the schedule with all of the shots I had planned, despite a few issues with space. I would say that this shoot day highlighted that I need to work on my sound management in future as I filmed the flashback scene without any sound at all, therefore giving myself more work in the edit. I think that writing an equipment checklist for setting up would be a good way of ensuring that everything is set up properly before filming.