Professional Practice: Skills

Professional Practice: Skills

Key skills I picked up over this unit include: 

Time management- On shoot days I was mainly filming outside so always had to think about light levels and finishing before things got too dark. Otherwise this could have lead to a rushed project with continuity errors.
I also wanted to make sure I allocated myself enough time to cover every angle on my shot list as well as time to review the footage on the day to see if it needed re shooting.
I also planned for time to help people who were also shooting at the guildhall that day and bellow is a picture of a schedule I put together. 

Thinking on My Feet- being adaptable is a skill I’ve worked on in all my units so far and only continued to develop it here. For example I found I couldn’t always be behind the camera and get the movement from the object I wanted, or shoot a PTC with effective panning. As such I asked people like Mellissa to help by either standing behind the camera while I presented or created the desired movement. Or had them hide out of shot moving the fire pump.
Due to overcast conditions on shoot days I had to adjust my settings so that my object could be clearly seen. But I had to find a happy medium between ISO and aperture so as not to have shots appear blown out when panning.
I also had to use separate cuts instead of one continuous shot as changing light levels would have looked ineffective.

Coming prepared with the right equipment- In situations where I didn’t have someone to help I could use a camera with a flip out screen so I could see what was in shot while I manipulated the scene. 

General Equipment use- I was able to further familiarise myself with equipment like the Tascam to provide better audio coverage in some situations. It helped create a nice atmosphere and was useful for recording voice over and back up audio when the shotgun mic cut out.
I was able to put my Dolly and action cam to good use paring it with either a gorilla pod or a tripod head, I shot unique angles that were both effective and stood out from other projects.

Leasing With Clients – With this project I was reminded of the importance of staying in touch with clients. Since most of the paperwork is coming from them and not my tutors it was key to maintain regular contact, exchanging story boards, scripts etc. This way they could see what my aims were and could offer guidance.



Maintaining regular contact also helped when I had questions or sought information about the museum. And when meeting in person I had the opportunity to talk through my aims and ideas with them, helping me to clear up exactly what my intentions and plans were, and allowing them to understand the creative process on a better level.