Wells Project - Film 2.

On Thursday, Adam and I met up with Ali at Wells to discuss the second film. Ali decided that it would be a good idea and beneficial to the Cathedral to have an appeal video for the Jesses Window on the Cathedral’s website.

We spent the day at Wells talking about the film’s requirements, the music and photographs she has and wants included.

During the course of the day we did film a few shots of the Jesse window, although due to its location it is extremely hard to get a variety of interesting shots. We went up into the very small organ room, which is located high up, which helped us get a different angle on the window. The rest of the shots were filmed from below.

To show the window’s detail within the film, we are going to have to use photographs Ali has provided, as it is impossible to get any detailed images using the camera.

On the Thursday evening Adam and I waited for the outside light to give a slight glow on the Cathedral building – although the lighting didn’t change a great deal, so we made a decision to adjust the shot in post production.

On the Friday Ali had arranged for two contributors to do interviews and pieces to camera about the Jesse Window. Friday was an early start both of us we left Weston at 7.30am to head over to Wells to get set-up ready for the first interview with a lady called Val at 10am.

Val’s interview went well, she was very knowledgeable on the Jesse window providing us with plenty of detailed and interesting content to use. Although during the interview we had to stop Val and ask her to repeat some of the information due to a buzzing or rustling from her clip mic.

The second contributor was the Cathedral Dean he did a piece to camera appealing for donations to help with the Jesse Window’s up keep. Due to his busy schedule we only had half an hour to get the material needed. This wasn’t a problem because we had already planned and organised the shot location the previous day.

That was the final shot of the day, all we need to do now is start the editing process on Monday.

Filming!

On Monday I helped Ved out with his shoot for his individual project, which was a scene from the first episode of a drama he has written called ‘Freshers Week’.

This was really good fun, it was great to see the actor and actresses from t

he casting session, which I helped out with on the Monday before portray the characters Ved had created. It was surprising to see the main character – Emma, who we were

unsure of in the casting session take on her role, I thought she did a really good job and made the character stand out.

During the day I helped out with various different roles and tasks but I probably spent most of my time, helping out with sound by taking on the role as boom operator. Although when we first started we did encounter a few technical problems with the sound equipment, for some unexplained reason we couldn’t get the Boom Mic to work, it wasn’t sending any sound levels to the camera. Not having any other Mics with us, we had to record the sound using the camera mic. At first t

he mic was struggling to pick up all the dialogue, however Sam had a an idea of placing the camera mic on the boom pole and holding that closer to the cast – which is what we did for the rest of the shoot.

Overall I thought the shoot went well, although I did think there were a few minor organisation issues with call times. Two of the actresses had the same call time as the other cast members but wasn’t being filmed until late afternoon. They spent quite a few hours sat around, looking a little bored. I personally think it would have been better to have given them a later call time, although looking on the positive side it did provide them with time to run through their lines. The other minor organisation issue I noticed was, when the other two actresses started filming their scenes, the rest of the cast were left hanging around waiting to complete one final shot. I think it would have been better to film the final shot before moving onto the next scene, allowing them to finish up and leave on time. I think this could have also caused a few problems with lighting as the set needed to re-lit due to the lights being moved to film the next scene.

Apart from them issues I though the day went really well, the location was brilliant, and the actors and actresses were all good and co-operative. Everyone worked well as a team, all helping out with various different roles and I think Ved did a great job in directing the shoot.

On the Tuesday afternoon, Adam, Tom and myself all went over to a primary school to film another part of Adam’s individual project, working along side the Avon and Wildlife Trust. The aim of the day was to film some primary school children taking part in a wildlife walk around their school grounds, which was run by the Avon and Wildlife Trust. The purpose of the film is to provide other people / schools with a taster of what the project / walk involves – teaching children to explore the different types of wildlife species. I took on the role of Still’s photographer and helping Tom out with the sound equipment and cables. As we were following the children around we needed to ensure they wouldn’t fall over any loose leads and wires from the boom mic.

The shoot went well, although I think additional material maybe needed at some point during the edit to establish the main points of the project – possibly using quotes from the children, teachers and Avon and Wildlife Staff.

Group Meeting and Vanessa and Virginia Update.

On Wednesday 24th March we all had a group meeting to discuss and organise a timetable for each of the group projects; scheduling days of work so everyone knew what projects they were working on and what needed to be done on each day. It was decided we would have all of the group projects completed by the 28th April, to allow us all time to focus on finishing and finalizing our individual projects. The majority of us have chosen to work through the Easter break in order to keep on top of the schedule and workload.
It was a good idea, to allocate certain dates to each project so we could work in small teams to get the production and post production completed, as everyone knew that on that day they were focused on developing that various project.

Last Monday I made a list of all the scenes we needed to make for the Vanessa and Virginia project, listing estimate timings for each one, this was done using the recorded read-through. Then on the Tuesday and Wednesday Sam, Tom, Chris and myself focused on creating and making some of the scenes. Sam and myself each brought in a variety of different props and materials to experiment with creating different affects. One of Beth’s requirements was she wanted the projection to look dream like. Baring this in mind we experimented with different materials in front of various shades of light. Below you will find a couple of examples we created.





Outside we all began experimenting with the exposure and colours to try and create this dream-like effect.
Another requirement Beth wanted was she wanted the production to be abstract and experimental so we played around with different lights, fabrics and textures to try and create these affects.
Below you will find an example.



We also created various images and scenes using Motion to create some different styles. Below is a clip I created using two colours from Vanessa Bell's paintings to represent Vanessa and Virginia's mother and father.



This week we are going to continue experimenting and creating other abstract images using paint, powders and liquids to create various textures, designs and affects.

Stanton Drew Shoot 2

On Tuesday 23rd March, I had organised to re-shoot at Stanton Drew but this time with a different contributor. Tom, Adam and Rob all helped out as crewmembers taking on roles of camera operator and sound recordists.
When we first arrived we made our way over to the Stone Circles to get ourselves organised, and have all the equipment set up ready for when Leon (contributor) arrived.
We began testing the sound equipment to get the correct sound levels when Tom noticed a slight buzzing sound; after talking with Rob they decided to remove the sound mixer as this seemed to be causing the annoying buzz. The sound was then set-up to be recorded straight into the camera.










































Once Leon arrived we were ready to start filming, however that’s when the weather decided to take a change for the worse and began raining. After waiting for a short while, the rain did die down, but there was still a slight shower I decided to carry on with the shoot, holding an umbrella over the camera to try and avoid any water going on the camera and lens. Although at times some shots were unusable due to this problem.
Once all the stone circles shots were filmed, we moved into The Druids Arms Pub where I got a few more takes of Leon telling the story of The Stanton Drew Dancers.
Leon was a fantastic contributor, he defiantly knew his stuff on Stanton Drew and was very confident in telling the story to camera – he had real character.



It was just a shame the weather was not as lovely as the previous Stanton Drew shoot, but then again the contributor, content and sound was a lot better so I guess it’s swings and roundabouts.
Adam, Tom and Rob were all really helpful on both shoots, all helping out with different problems that occurred, everyone was really organised and overall I was happy with the way the shoot went.

Stanton Drew Shoot 1

After speaking to Gordon about my project he agreed to contribute what he knew about the myth of the Stanton Drew Stone Circles. After getting permission from the local Stanton Drew farmer (who owns the land) it was arranged with Gordon I would meet him at the Stone Circles on Tuesday 16th March where he would tell the local story to camera.

I organised a small crew again to help out with the shoot. Adam took on the role as camera operator, Rob and Tom both helped out as sound recordists and Sam took the role as stills photographer.

When we arrived it was a beautiful day to film, the weather was gorgeous. However when we first began setting the equipment up, we came across a technical problem with the camera – the picture was all grainy. We tried to resolve this problem but were having great difficulty; but Adam rang Dani and managed to resolve the problem over the phone.
Below is an example of what the picture looked like, before the problem was resolved.



We finally got started with the shoot, and began filming Gordon telling the story. Gordon had brought along a local poem / song about Stanton Drew, which he read to camera however he read from the piece of paper – although this wasn’t ideal. I thought I could use the poem as a voice-over replacing the visuals with different shots of Stanton Drew and the Stone Circles.
Due to other commitments Gordon could only say with us for a couple of hours so the shoot was quite short, and I was a little concerned and disappointed with the amount of content we managed to film, but felt I had enough to create a small feature for my documentary; however I did think we had shot some great cut aways of the stones, church, signs, etc.

The following day I went into Artswork and began capturing my material when I discovered that the majority of the material shot was unusable due to distorted sound. Unsure of why this was, I asked Dani he seemed shocked at the quality of the sound and told me that the levels would have been too high on the camera causing this problem. At the shoot, all the sound was set-up to go through the mixer, and on the day Tom, Rob and myself all thought the sound, sounded fine.
It was later discovered that the distorted sound was down to a technical problem with the clip Mic.

Due to these problem I was unable to use any of the material shot and needed to rearrange another shoot, to re-film everything.
I then received a phone call from Tom, who had a friend - Leon that was very knowledgeable about Stanton Drew and it’s local myths. After speaking to Leon, he agreed he would be a contributor for my film and would tell the myth to camera. It was arranged I would re-shoot on the 23rd March.