Major Project: Diary Room Shoot

Major Project: Diary Room Shoot

Today saw the completion of our "diary room" shoot. The diary room is basically the master interview that runs throughout our project, where Alex reflects on his past and what led him up to this moment. It helps to ground the film and the narrative.

As producer, I arranged this shoot. Alex gave me the details of some people/places to contact, the most appropriate of which was the one we were shooting in today. I found the details of this garage online and obtained the contact details of its owner. I then proceeded to message him and explained that I was a colleague of Alex's. I went on to explain what our project is and ask if it would be ok for us to use part of his garage as a shooting location. This was agreed by him and I arranged a convenient date for our visit. I was initially apprehensive going in as the owner (Steven) seemed a bit uncommunicative in our discussions online. However, in real life, he turned out to be an incredibly kind and accommodating person. Ensuring we had plenty of space to work with and everything we needed.

Before the actual shoot, the crew and I actually came here one afternoon for a test shoot to make sure we knew what space we had to work with and how we could work with it. The one thing we learned from that shoot was that lighting and subtle camera movements were the key factors we needed to consider.

I arranged all of the equipment as well for this shoot. To get the most out of this shoot I arranged for us to have: A track and dolly (for the movements found in Alex's reference material), Aperture( lights (to fill/flood the room) A roto light (as our key light), a clip mic to pair with the university Panasonic (for better audio sync) and plenty of tripods and stands for the 3 camera's and lights.

As I set up the equipment Alex and Cailan, worked to find the best space and shooting angle's to work with, and see what they could use as a backdrop to create some kind of mise en scene. 

As this was being done, Connor Winfield (who I had arranged to come down to operate a camera) arrived. So after we were all established I proceeded to talk to Alex, Connor and Cailan about the camera plans they had made, which I ensured I had to hand. We got a sense of how this shoot was going to play out, so whilst Cailan and Connor practised, I ran through the questions with Alex. 

I had made a schedule for this day, but I found that this was perhaps an optimistic plan. Since throughout the day we were constantly running behind. This is due to the fact it took many more takes to successfully complete each question than I had anticipated. This was not really anyone's fault, it just transpired that Alex had a harder time finding the right words to give a consistent answer, and Cailan really struggled to get a smooth shot in the limited space we had.

None the less we were able to complete a successful number of takes for each question. Throughout the shoot my main focus was helping Alex with his delivery and ensuring we stayed close to our script and shotlists/camera plans. I also gave assistance to Cailan and Connor where needed.

Looking back at the footage I am happy with the answers Alex gave and the content we shot. But I think the lighting and mise en scene could have been better. But as this isn't really my area, I will show it to Simon or Helen when I'm next in to get their thoughts.