As Live Production: Mock Up VT Shoot

As Live Production: Mock Up VT Shoot

Today was my groups shoot day for the two mock-up VT's that we had been assigned. Due to a slight change in the show's running order, the VT's we had to work on were the "Old To New" VT (that I have been researching) and the "Online Fails" VT. The idea of this mockup was to make sure we knew what we were doing. It was designed as a practice run so we could ensure we filmed in the correct style and had an idea of the length of time the VT's would take up. It also gave us a chance to identify any challenges that we might face in our actual shoot. 

Although my role for VT's is as a researcher I still found myself taking quite an active role in this shoot which was a great experience and I found myself recalling and improving on skills I had utilised in previous units.

We had two VT's to film today and planned we had planned to film both of them in and around Callum's house, which worked to our advantage since we didn't have to spend too much time to RECCIE the location since it was already familiar to several of our crew.

In the morning we worked on the "Old To New" VT. For this part George Wing was the Director, Jason was on camera, Callum was our producer, I was a camera assistant, while Alex Hargood and Amie were our models. 

For the first half of the day I served as a camera assistant. I helped with the framing of shots as having watched some other source material from sites like Buzzfeed I had an idea of what we should focus on. 

We used mostly tripod shots so that we could easily pan and zoom to focus on the outfits our subjects were wearing. Each of our subjects had two outfits (mostly borrowed from Callum as we haven't yet purchased the outfits we will use for the real shoot). 

We tried to keep the backgrounds plain for the most part (e.g. using a white wall) and mostly filmed outside relying on natural light. This way we didn't have to keep resetting the white balance, and we could keep the audiences focus on the clothing not what's in the background. George and Jason paired this technique with some extreme close-ups to ensure our style was consistent with that of other fashion media.

We did a small RECCIE of the location and found an old VW camper van parked on the road. This worked great for mise en scene/set design since it was from the same era as one of the outfits we were using. We had Amie walk past it while we filmed from the other side of the road. Upon my suggestion, we then had Alex also walk past the camera twice (in two different outfits), this way Alex could hopefully do some clever cuts in the edit to make it look like the models are stepping through time. 

In the afternoon we all switched roles in order to film the second VT mock-up. The next VT that we filmed was the "Online Fashion Fails" VT. For this Mock-Up, Drey took over as Director, Jason stayed on camera since Alex B couldn't make it due to illness;   Alex H became the camera assistant (he also appeared on camera at times so Callum filled in at those points), while Amie worked on sound, Connor D was the producer, and I was the presenter.

The first part of the VT was filmed at a desk in Callum's room. The desk was next to a window so we were relying on the natural light at first. However, this proved to be ineffective as I am facing away from the window for the majority of the scene. Fortunately, I had brought some lights with me just in case we needed them. We set two up as a key and a fill/backlight and they made the shot far more effective. I was able to learn my lines quickly and give an effective delivery. Drey set the shot up so that we had a little bit of a cut away/establishing shot to begin with, (I scroll through a laptop looking at fashion related items) before the camera adjusts its zoom and I turn to face it. This helped to give context to our audience and is a tip we will take forward in to our future shoots.

For the second half of the VT we had an interview two-shot situation. We thought about having a two camera set-up but for this mock-up it would have overcomplicated things (since the cameras would have different white balances and colour grading). So instead we used 1 camera but did multiple takes from different angles.

For this I interviewed Alex about his own online fail story. I again found learning the lines quite easy since i'm well practised at it and I was able to adapt them slightly so that it flowed better and sounded more natural. 

The lighting in the kitchen was awful, but fortunately my lights were able to effectively fix this. We had to move them                          around quite a lot though as their reflection                        was picked up in the kitchen tiles. 

Another issue we hadn't anticipated was the lack of space in the kitchen. As a result the camera had to be placed on the work surface in order to get both me and Alex in the shot. After a few takes we achieved a successful interview that matched the slightly more "watchdogs" documentary approach we wanted for the VT. To conclude the day we filmed a few reaction shots from me (e.g. nodding, asking questions etc). This was so Alex had something to cut too in the edit along with pictures of the item discussed in the interview. 

Overall today was incredibly productive. We all worked really well as a team in order to complete two successful mock-up VT's. This was a great learning experience that prepared us with the skills, and things we need to anticipate in our actual shoot.