Myself and the production designer attached to the project had been preparing the set for weeks prior to the shoot date on Monday the 19th. When it came to Monday the set was ready to go and we were ready to begin shooting. The crew and actors arrived on set for 6:00PM. Another issue that has turned into a blessing was the fact that we cannot record sound in the space where our set is. This means that we will have to ADR the lines that we recorded on the day. The positive is that due to our time restrictions, the lack of sound or importance placed on it reduced our shoot time dramatically. I estimated that it would have took double as long to shoot if we were relying on crisp useable sound within the takes. It's a lot less of a problem for us to put the sound in after a few ADR and foley sessions.
Graham Saxon as Julian, in 'Echoes of Silence'.
When we started shooting I knew exactly what I wanted. I had spent a lot of time studying my storyboards and shot lists like I usually do to ensure I was prepared on set. The first shot we did is the first shot in the actual scene, a track in shot along a corridor into a room revealing the character and his surroundings. We shot this on the day using a pedestal/portable tripod which didn't work as well as we anticipated. I made everyone aware at the start of the shoot that there was 100% room for mistakes on this shoot. I did this because we were coming back to shoot the following day, so that we could easily correct any mistakes that were made after review. I did this for morale reasons also. Giving people the freedom to make mistakes undoubtedly gets their creative juices flowing quicker and makes them comfortable on set.
Despite the first shot not working as well as we had hoped, the shots we got after were excellent. We came up with some quick-fire solutions to problems such as tricking the shot by moving the subject and furniture to create more room for the camera to frame what we wanted. The following shots consisted of close-ups and mid-shots as we utilised our two unit camera system. Having two units has also been extremely effective in saving time on set whilst not sacrificing quality.
Following the very brief and insignificant mistakes we made on Monday, I reviewed the footage and decided the course of action for the shoot the following day. I decided to substitute the pedestal for the tracking dolly. I made this decision because when watching the footage back it was clear that the struggle we had in moving the pedestal forward was noticeable on camera. There are bumps and shakes in almost every second of the shot. This really distracts what you're trying to see and ultimately hinders the storytelling. Therefore on Tuesday before the second shoot we set up the tracking dolly ready to get the shot again.
Graham reading his lines on set.
Overall both shoots went very well. They were well executed, organised and we got most of what we needed. Unfortunately we had to miss shots due to a missing projector that we were supposed to use in a few shots. This was out of our control so its a simple case of coming back for them shots at a later date. For me it's great to see the two unit camera system working to our advantage. We've somehow fallen into shooting the film chronologically which inevitably helps our editors. This was entirely unintentional and can only be put down to coincidence, but as we have been shooting scenes they have simply formed a continuation. I will try to keep going with this as it gives you great clarity whilst trying to tell a story, but I'm well aware that we'll have to change the order at some point. Right now we're working at a great pace with a month and a half to go. I can see us meeting the half-way mark during the Easter break.
No comments:
Post a Comment