This week of Film Light was like a jam packed exercise week. On Monday we went straight into shooting scenes and then on Wednesday we were reviewing them. The group I was in was super proactive so we’d already planned the shoot out on the Wednesday prior as we realised we’d have to no time to plan it out on the day. So we went through each scene, talked through how we’d shoot it and then organised roles for everyone. This meant that when we got in Monday we could just go straight into shooting our scenes.

Even before shooting our scenes we knew that we’d feel the time crunch, but it became super evident once we began shooting how much time we were eating up even just organising basic things like where an actor would stand, how to not get something ugly in frame, or how to light the back of someones head. It felt like we could have spent two hours on each of those scenes and only just have enough time to shoot everything the way we wanted. One thing that was very evident to me at the time of shooting was how much everything that you’ve learnt seems to go out the window. Suddenly you forget to make sure someones lighting is effective, or you don’t frame the scene up properly, or you mess the dialogue up and keep it in.

These things become especially obvious when reviewing the footage later, which we did on the Wednesday. One of the shots from our scenes Robin said was essentially pretty useless and we could have easily shot that scene in a much more effective way just from a slightly different angle. It’s things like this that people point out and your like “ohh yeah, why did we shoot it that way?”, and generally it seems that the only reason you shot it that way is because you just weren’t really thinking about it, or you didn’t think long enough, or well enough about how to get the best shot. I guess the more you shoot, the less you make these silly mistakes, because you become more aware of how such mistakes will drastically reduce your chances of getting the shots you want.

Until next time,

Louise Wilson