AS Media
Progress tracker of AS Media project by Matthew Facer
Candidate Number: 7547
Filming Journal:
11/01/2016
Our group began filming on Monday the 11th of January. We decided that we would film at Poole Grammar to start with as it was the easiest location to film at as well as being the smartest point to start chronologically for our film anyway. We took a camera and set up at the top of the stairs but we had to wait for the majority of the pupils to leave the school so there would be no background noise. There was also a worry at this point that it might rain as it had done that morning but luckily it didn't happen; it wouldn't necessarily have ruined the immersion but the noise against the wall would have interfered with the sound of the text from the phone and the sounds of Luke's steps on the stairs or even the music we had planned for. Once we got started with the filming, we found it fairly simple. Luke (as mentioned before) has Media Studes experience and so showed us how to use the camera well with tips on how to make different shots work and how to zoom etc. We were able to film the whole scene we wanted + a few extra shots we decided we could potentially add in (they never made it but it was better to be safe rather than sorry we felt). Initially we had the idea of having Luke walk down the stairs and each credit for the film appear on each step as he descends and so we made sure to film Luke walking down the stairs in different speeds to make sure we allowed room for credits but it ended up not mattering that much as we decided against doing the sequence that way in the end. Overall the first day of filming was surprisingly successful and enjoyable for all!
12/01/2016
We actually managed to get going straight away the next day and this time at the Premier Inn. James got permission via email and we arrived at approximately 4pm, met by a receptionist who gave us a room key and away we went. It actually didn't get dark until around about 5pm so we ended up having to wait around for a long time but this time meant we could plan what we were going to film and how long we would be. When it hit 5pm it got very dark very quickly and so we began. We decided we would focus mainly on the corridor scene(s) that day and so most of our work was done outside of the room and with a lot of strange looks as various guests walked past our set-up! This meant me and James would take turns working the camera whilst Jordan and Luke got down to acting out with the note and briefcase props. Despite the clear focus being on the corridor scenes, we still decided we'd just get some room scenes in just to get an idea of what it would look like. The room scenes were quite rushed though as we were coming up to around 6pm by the time we got done with the corridor scenes and therefore they came to be fairly useless besides 1 or two shots. It's definitely fair to say that James was the better cameraman throughout this whole day of filming and I struggled a bit so I took a more directorial stance on this particular day. I ended up orchestrating the acting and sorting out which props we needed when or what shots we should do for each scene. Overall the second day of filming was successful in terms of the corridor scenes but we were still lacking of any good shots from inside the room.
18/01/2016
Day three of filming was incredibly simple in truth as we noticed in early editing that a few shots could probably be made a little better and the lighting was strangely mixed at times in the Poole Grammar scene so we decided to return to re-film portions. For example, our first take for the receiving of the text ended up being marginally too blurry and had a time that was too unrealistic for the time gap between our protagonist leaving his place of work and arriving at the inn. I, again, took a more directorial role and left James to the camera work. He ended up being particularly proud of his shot of the zoom-in on the text message which it's fair to say is probably one of our best shots! Besides that we just ended up re-touching certain shots and trying new angles but nothing major. Overall it was our shortest day filming throughout the whole project as well as being the easiest in terms of what shots we needed.
20/01/2016
Upon day four of filming, we decided to go back to the Premier Inn to get the required footage from inside the room. James contacted the management team who allowed us to go back but weren't able to get us the same room. We then realised that whatever we did have that was good enough for the final cut from the previous day at the Premier Inn would either have to be scapped or mirrored. I say mirrored because the new room was quite literally identical to the old room but everything was on the opposite side of where it would be in the other room. There was also a lot more Premier Inn branded material around that we had to get rid off before we started as well as asking to have different bedding put in to keep consistent! I'm sure they thought we were a pain by the end of it! Regardless, we got to work once it hit 5pm again and myself and James' roles swapped for this day; I wanted to try my hand at filming again whilst James pulled the directorial strings. We re-recorded the knocking on the door scene as there was a new door number and then got to work on the interior filming, being careful not to make too much noise as to not interrupt other guests! This was by far the longest day of filming as we tried out a plethora of different shots and angles as well as lighting within the room, we ended up finishing around half 6pm/7pm! We had Jordan also record his voice clip for the door knocking scene on this day too which we ended up making into an audio clip which was easier than including his voice from the video clip. We tried out different prop positioning too with the slip of paper and briefcase placement too. It was essentially a day of trying out different things and seeing what looked best; overall this day was probably the most productive and definitely brought out the most creativity in our group.
22/01/2016
On our (supposed) last day of filming, we headed off to the local youth centre to film. We actually ended up doing this on a school day so we went home and got changed and prepared before going out. This also gave time for Luke to get his bike. We quickly decided that we had to do this on one day to minimize the chances of getting caught with a BB-gun, we figured we'd rather avoid any police attention especially given how realistic the fake firearm appears! We got there around 4pm as it was getting darker but we had to do all our filming within an hour and a half as it got far too dark at approximately half 5pm which not only made it hard to see but would also cause problems for our film consistency-wise. James liked the director role he was previously assigned and, thus, we stuck with the previous roles from the last day of filming. It was here that James had the idea of filming from behind the bars which, in my opinion, is another one of our best shots and flaunts our group's creative side again. We found the tracking shot of Luke approaching the bike fairly difficult to nail down as both myself and Jordan tried it but frequently found our hands shaking. Eventually Jordan managed to keep his hand steady enough to make the shot workable and left me to do the rest of the camera work. Ideally we wanted to kill some time with the shots we got here so I suggested we film Luke putting on his gear and taking off into a road but we ended up cutting those shots out as it meant that there was far too much dead time in between the action; we did keep the shots of Luke getting geared up but we ended up inserting a transition post-production. On the whole, then, this day represented our whole period of filming really in that we found difficulties that we overcame with relative ease but mostly we found the experience very enjoyable/fun as well as an experience from which we learned a lot!