So the time had finally come to shoot this thing, and I couldn’t be happier! Even though it was interesting to work on the pre-production and it was a real learning experience for me, the practical side is where I hit my stride and where I was finally able to give some back to the group. The creative writers in our group made it clear that they weren’t the most comfortable behind a camera or doing anything technical so the other media students and I made sure they knew what they were doing by the end of the day.

As you might have seen in the call sheet that I had put together we all took it in turn of being various things, depending on the number of crew we had at a time we would have a Director, AD, cinematographer, boom operator and light operator. By the end of the shoot we all had done at least one of each. I think this was the best way to do it because it allowed everyone to have a taste for each individual job and also allowed us media students to lead by example.

In regards to the actual shooting I think it went fairly well! we had a slight problem with an actor not showing up which we managed to overcome by having one of our own step in but besides that there were no major problems. I mentioned in a previous post that it would be interesting to see how I would go running with a call sheet instead of running on the fly: to be honest, I didn’t find it much of a help. It was good in the sense that we didn’t leave anything out because we new exactly what we needed to film and it made sure that we each gave everyone an equal turn which is fair in this context but when it comes to actually being in the industry you don’t swap around your jobs every hour. I guess it might have been the way that I wrote out the call sheet, I tended to block out hour lots where we could rehearse and film a specific genre but besides stating that every other decision was thought up right there and then, which is how I usually work. I feel, if I had the opportunity again, I would take one script and put it through the whole pre-production phase, doing things like making a shot list and drawing up a story board to create something very rigid that you have to stick to. unfortunately this was not the case and I never got that epiphany that I was hoping for, something to prove to me that it was worth doing so much planning. I guess the only thing that I found benefit in is organising the crew and cast to shoot around their other schedules of work and life, although you’d like to think that if they were in the industry and getting paid for it then you wouldn’t need to worry about that anyway.

Anyway, all in all it was a great day of shooting, I managed to bring some skills to the team which I may have been lacking in the pre-production stage, nifty tricks that I had learned from my other shoots, only things that you can really learn once you’ve been through them before, like using a swivel chair for a dolly shot.