Continuity Task - Day 1

After we had done our planning and decided on what we was going to do we had to start filming our 60 second piece. Our teacher gave us a brief introduction of the equipment we were going to be using, this included: 


Tripod:                                                                  Camera:

We picked our camera and tripod so we could start filming and get to grips with the equipment. This was because none of us knew how to set-up the camera or the tri-pod at first so we needed practice before we went ahead. 

After this we then went on to filming our scenes using what we know about editing and filming. We followed the plans from our brainstorm and shot list however we did face some problems on location. 

Furthermore after we finished filming we then had to be shown how to take the raw footage off the camera and put on to the computer ready to edit in Premiere Pro. When we started to go through our footage we noticed we would have to re-take some scenes as even though we thought we had everything we need some of the shots have errors in them such as top of the heads cut off, or camera jolts. This made us realise how hard it really was and how much effort we would have to put into completing this task at a high standard to meet the target grades.

Problems We Faced
Some of the problems we faced during our first shoot were:

• availability of actors and location - this was hard as we had to film our scenes in the school and we wanted to base our scene in the cafe, however this was a very busy place and luckily it wasn't too busy at the time and we luckily manages to acquire some willing actors to take part.
• gathering of actors - we had to find people willing to take part in our filming as some people were shy and some people were busy at the time.
• lighting, due to our time schedule in the day - for example on the day it was especially bright and we had our scene based by one of the tables which was by the window and we then had to put down the blinds to stop the sun from getting in to our shots, however this still didn't provide the best lighting
• noise, because was set in a busy cafe in our school - this was extremely annoying and impossible to control as it was a public cafe in the school where there were other people in their leisure talking etc. and this was leaked into the clips.
• our knowledge of use of the equipment- e.g. zooming, positioning, tripod set up etc. - this we found hard as we didn't have any knowledge on the use of any of the technology

Solutions

Some of the ways we got past our problems:

• We managed to find willing actors that were free and could participate in our task, and we managed to re-shoot scenes that we needed around their schedule and meet up when they were free to get the shots we needed.
• For the lighting we decided to put the blinds down to reduce the light which helped the lighting however we couldn't control it well.
• Noise level was impossible to control and we couldn't do much about it but we tried to film at times when there wasn't much talking.
• We then found out how to use the equipment properly and slowly learnt what was the proper things to do by getting shown and getting used to the technology.