Kirsty - AS Media

Our crew arranged to film on Thursday after school, however, Tyler, a key member in our cast, couldn't make it. We decided to go to our location anyway, as it was the first time all of the media group were together to film. We thought it best to shoot some test footage and solve any initial problems caused by filming in our location when our cast wasn't there and we weren't wasting their time. We wanted to experiment with camera angles, our dolly, lighting and the space that we were in.

 As we didn't have an opportunity to work with the dolly previously, so we thought this the perfect time to see what sort of footage it produced in our location. Unfortunately, the barn's floor was uneven and stony,
causing the dolly footage to
consequently be very shaky.
Using initiative, I suggested placing one of the many surrounding boards down to use as a smooth base for the dolly to run on.

We also experimented with how shadows looked and formed in our lighting, as several of our storyboards involve them. Additionally, we played around with the flood light to alter the warm and cold colouring, and to find an optimal between low key and high key lighting (as low key lighting may be a thriller convention, but it also reduces the quality of the footage).

In terms of camera angles, I wanted to practice one of my last storyboard shots. The character Charlie has only half of her face framed in the shot, whilst a shadow moves behind her. Though Tyler, who plays Charlie, wasn't there, Yoli volunteered to take her place as I experimented with the shot.
I decided to frame it slightly further away than I had originally planned (a mid shot rather than a close up).



I felt this not only made the character seem smaller (and thus weaker), but it made the shadow in the background easier to see. It also made sure that the whole frame was in focus, rather than just the background or the character's face.