PROFESSIONAL TOOLKIT: Shoot
With the set build and everything in place it was time to start the shoot.
Monday morning started with getting the kit set up, testing out shots, camera moves and making sure everything was ready on the shoot day.
The main lighting issues that needed to be sorted were:
- The TV's blue light
- The actors modeling light
With Anne and Chris helping out too it wasn't too hard for the lighting team to do a superb job with getting everything together.
Also i needed to get comfortable with the samurai blade since it would be my main monitor to view and review each take.
A cool feature i found was the ability to choose scene and shot names, this would help Rob find the takes matching the shot list, since the names would be eg. DFSA_S002_S010_T004 (Scene 2, Shot 10, Take 4)
The main camera move the crew rehearsed was the establishing master shot, since we were using the Moviola for a relatively complex move.
Also it was good to have an extra day to sort things out since some of the equipment was not working correctly (the Blade had some power supply issues), therefore we had enough time to get the technicians to look at it.
Lastly, we shot some pickups of the set to help with the edit.
Tuesday Morning everyone was called in at 9 to prepare the set.
Aaron (our actor) was originally going to show up at 9:30, with Julia showing him to the studio but he showed up early, therefore i greeted him, showed him to the green room and went over the day's schedule with him.
Thankfully Julia had bought water bottles, tea, coffee and snacks the day before, so we could provide these to the actor.
Set up only lasted about half an hour since everything was ready from the day before.
As i was making sure that everything was being set up properly, Julia who had now arrived introduced herself to the actor and explained the payment details.
After everything was set up and ready, it was time to call the actor in.
According to our shoot schedule, we were to shoot the master establishing shot first as one go.
With the actor in position, i asked him first to do a test run just to get used to the set environment, and the blocking. This was also useful for the rest of the crew because camera moves could be refined, the microphone could be better placed, etc...
After the first pass i gave some corrections to the camera crew, suggesting that i could give them cues for each move, and i let Aaron know what i like from his initial performance, and what i wanted to be adjusted.
After each successive take the same process went on to try and get the best shot possible. Some happy accidents even occurred in takes, for example as Aaron was leaving the set towards the end, he paused, turned back and then looked at the phone before finally leaving. This spontaneous bit of performance was just pure gold, and i decided to add it in the pickups as a closeup.
After the master was shot, the actor was sent back to the green room whilst the camera crew changed lenses. This gave me some time to watch the footage and see if i had missed anything.
The closeups were done in a similar fashion, where after each take minor corrections would be made to both the crew and Aaron. Sometimes even if a take was perfect, if Aaron was up for it we'd shoot it again to have some flexibility in post.
After lunch, we got back to doing pickups. Here i asked rob if i could take control of the camera to try out a few things (only for the pickup shots), and since he was ok with it, i just tried a couple of takes with different movements/angles.
During the set being swapped around, i had noticed that we were way ahead of schedule. This was really useful since swapping the lights around had it's complications (thankfully Harry, Rob and Anne did a great job with solving problems).
Unfortunately, Rob received an electric shock from the equipment, so i took over operating and asked Rob to break for a bit.
The next shots were done in the same manner as the previous, only before the actor came on set we had rehearsed the moves with Lauren or Anne as stand ins.
Also for some of the closeups the tracking markers were re-arranged in order to get a better track from such a tight shot.
Lastly we did some sound takes as Ulysses had asked us to.
"aaannnd.... that's a Wrap!"
Shooting ended successfully with me pleased at all of the shots we got, and the amount of effort from the entire team.
I went on to congratulate the actor on his performance, and show him some of the dailies before he followed Julia and Rosie for his payment.
Since the actor had left now, the equipment was being put aside in their bags ready for the next group, the files were being copied to a hard drive and the flooring was being disassembled.
It was sad to see the now incomplete set with all the studio lights off and the equipment packed away, but i can say it was definitely worth it.
Good to read you had a successful day. It all looked highly professional when I came into the studio and thanks for talking to the Foundation Students.
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