Shoot Day

 Shoot Day

Yesterday we had our shoot! There was a lot of pre planning that went into it and in the end it worked out. The day before our shoot we decorated one of our rooms. We got items from all of our rooms and set the scene. But, on the day of filming we changed it a lot because it was 'too neat' to be a university students room, so we had to make it very messy and we only used half the size of the room to make it smaller. 

Then It was time to shoot. When I first woke up I was really excited because we spent so much time planning our opening sequence and it was finally time to shoot. I was also nervous because I wanted the day to be as perfect as possible. When I arrived for the shoot, I was pretty prepared. My group had our shot-by-shot plan and we gave the actor's their scripts. Before we could start shooting, we had to come into school to print it all out then we had to go to the studio and take all of our equipment back to the room we were shooting our first scene in. When my group and I decorated the room it was pretty neat and we used the whole space of the room. But, when we arrived on shoot day we had to make it look very messier. We made the sink look very gross by combining and spilling a bunch of liquids in it. We also had to use mine and Lily's computers because there were no other available computers around.  

On the shoot day, we each took turns directing, using the cameras, and using the microphones. We did this because we all wanted to have a taste of of what it would be like to do each role. I think I did a very good job of making known what I wanted to happen, as well as listening to my peers and stepping back when needing too. When you are in an environment like that, it can be very stressful because you all want the shoot to be perfect but you all may not have the same ideas on how you can achieve that. 

The most successful part of the shoot was definitely filming the three scammers. Filming in the student's room took almost three hours because of the variety of shots and all the actions we had planned. The scammers was much easier because there were not as many angles we could film from and we also had the experience of filming the first part so it ran smoothly. I wish the first part of the shoot had gone better. There was some miscommunication at first and everyone was so excited and nervous that everyone was a little on edge. We spent so much time filming the same things over and over again, and had we just communicated more clearly we wouldn't have had too.

I enjoyed filming the three scammers the most because we got to get a lot of cool shots on them. We also got close ups of them going in and out of focus and that was a fun feature I learned. I am looking forward to edit in all of the videos my group made pre-production. We filmed CCTV beforehand and I made a Hacking and Map video using Adobe After Effects which turned out really well. My group put a lot of time in the pre production and I am excited to incorporate it all. 

My team worked really great together. There were obstacles but we overcame them by voicing our ideas and then listening to others. It was fun to be able to work on a project like this with my friends. I also think the fact that we did not get to work together in person until April really slowed us down and made it more challenging. But when we were all reunited after four months we worked really hard everyday on this production.

There are a few lessons I learned that would make my next shoot successful. Teamwork is really important and if you cannot work well with others your shoot will be a disaster. So, to listen to others ideas and work together to come up with something everyone is happy with will benefit everyone in the future. Also, making sure you know what you are doing 100% before you film. Although we came in feeling prepared, there was still some things that we should have finalized before the shoot day. 

Shoot day went really well, and I am excited to see how our final product turns out.