Filming of The Christmas Concert, Wells Cathedral

Yesterday Adam, Sam and myself all went over to Wells to film the Christmas Concert at Wells Cathedral for the first of the three, three minute films we are making for them. Adam had previously filmed the rehearsal on the Saturday, and our main aim on the Sunday was to capture some good shots that would showcase a taste of the Christmas Concert, where the cathedral is entirely lit by candles.



(Picture similar to the Concert's Lighting)

Although this was very beautiful and amazing to look at, it was extremely difficult to film the concert due to limited lighting and the positions we were located in (we were high up, looking over everything). Although I do think we managed to get a variety of good shots of the choir, candles and audience.
We all arrived at Wells at around half past three, met up and went across to the cathedral, where we got everything set up straight away ready to begin filming the Vergers lighting the candles.
Adam and myself had planned to create a time-lapse of the cathedral being lit, both of us thought this would be a great way to show people how wonderful the cathedral looks lit just by candlelight; but also to help show how this Christmas concert is different to the Christmas service. Adam set the camera up on the tripod and placed it on the West Front Balcony to capture this time-lapse, the plan was to leave the camera recording and not move it until all the candles were lit, and the whole cathedral glowed in candlelight. However I think the camera accidentally got moved, so I’m not sure how the time-lapse material will turn out. It will be extremely disappointing if it hasn’t worked to how we had both imagined because we were hoping to use this material has a transition from the rehearsal material to the Christmas Concert material.
We all arrived at Wells at around half past three, met up and went across to the cathedral, where we got everything set up straight away ready to begin filming the Vergers lighting the candles.
Once we had filmed some material of the Vergers and candles we all took a quick break, had some dinner and then got straight back to work, filming everyone entering the cathedral. We made the decision that we would only capture sound using the camera mics because of limited spacing, time and the fact we had to be really discreet and not seen by the public; most of the finished film will contain soundtrack material.
The only major thing that concerned me during the day / evening was the weather conditions it was very icy and I hate driving in it; so it took us a little longer to get there and back. But luckily everything that was being filmed was filmed inside so it didn’t affect the filming of the concert.


Overall I think everything went well, although we couldn’t get all the shots we had planned because of health and safety issues and lighting I believe we have enough to produce a strong finished short film. After the concert I spoke to Ali and she seemed really pleased with what we had managed to do and she understood that it would have been impossible to film the whole concert, getting a variety of different shots but she was pleased with what she had seen so far.

1st Filming Day

On Tuesday 8th December 2009 I completed my first filming day for my Individual film ‘The Myths, Legends and Hauntings of Somerset’. As the project is a small production, I arranged to take a small crew along with me to help out. Aleicia took on the role of Camera Operator, Tom was the Sound Recordist and I took on the role as director. I met Aleicia and Tom at Weston Train Station around 8.45am and we went on from there to Yeovil Junction Train Station arriving at around 10.15am. When we first arrived the café was fairly busy and Ros was a little tied up working. We took this opportunity to get everything checked and set –up. I did plan to use some extra lighting, but for some reason we had some lighting issues, the light we had taken didn’t seem stable, in the end I made the decision to abandon the light for health and safety reasons plus the camera picture looked well lit anyway.
Once we had Ros mic’d up and Tom had checked sound levels, we were ready to go. I had planned some questions in case Ros was stuck with what to say; however these weren’t really needed. I felt Ros told the story really well, and she was full of character and enthusiasm. We did a few takes of Ros telling the story stood behind the counter. During the first take Ros seemed o.k. but I knew she needed to be made comfortable so I decided to get Aleicia to film a conversation between Ros and myself discussing ‘Molly the Tea Lady’. I felt this take put her at ease and she seemed comfortable during the next few takes.





After filming Ros telling the story, we then worked though my shot list filming a variety of cut aways and additional material to use within my final edit, these included: establishing shots of Yeovil Junction, Trains passing through, clocks, basement, freezers, kitchen, tea, etc.




We ended up finishing around 2.30 – 3pm. Got everything packed up and made our way back to Weston.
The following morning I captured all my material onto the computer, making some logging notes of the footage to help during the editing stages. After looking back over the footage I was pleased with what we had filmed. I did have a few concerns as some of the camera footage was a little shaky (during the hand-held footage) some possibly unusable, which is a little disappointing but I wont know for sure until I get into the editing stage. However as Dani mentioned to me we are all still in the learning process and this will all come with experience.
Overall I think the filming day went well, I was pleased with how organised and helpful everyone was and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Aleicia and Tom for their support and help with the project. :-)