Professional Experience Diary – Day 5 – 10
Days 5 to 10 of the council job was the main shoot. Mandy (the director of the project) had drafted up a shooting schedule and arranged the interviews for the week. Every day consisted of two locations, which generally meant, two interviews or two different stories.
The first day, we shot at LIFE PATH TRUST and interviewed the manager there. Life path trust, is a company that employs disabled people to give them a role in society. We arrived and started setting up lighting and camera equipment straight away because are time was limited. We also dressed the room to make the interview backdrop more informative about life path trust and generally more interesting. After the interview, we shot cut-aways of the factory to show how people can work there.
The second day consisted of two different locations. The first was at a modern care home called Ribbon Court. There we conducted two interviews with staff then into a resident’s home to film a short interview with someone in care. Mandy acted as interviewer. The first two interviews went smoothly, though looking back at the footage now, i wish i got a better shot. I forgot the rule of allowing space for the words, for example the subject is framed on the right side if facing and speaking to the left. It’s not bad, and it doesn’t distract, but as a film-maker it could be better. Mandy wanted to be filmed talking to a resident of the care home as an informal interview. Knowing the resident is disabled, i was a bit concerned about invading her home, with a crew full of people. Remembering a lesson learnt in my documentary module, we only sent in people who needed to be there so not to distract the person being interviewed. In this case it was Tim.
From Ribbon Court we moved on to film the story of Susan. A lady living in care, whom was helped out by her family. So it was like a family care home. The room Mandy wanted to shoot in, was a film-makers problem room. It was dark, very reflective, and suffered strongly from echo. To make things harder, Mandy wanted the shot as four people talking around the table. We didn’t have enough tie mics for this so we used the rifle mic. Time was limited and everything was a rush. I’m not making excuses but the shoot, did not come out good. I had feelings that it wouldn’t when shooting, and i should have been more vocal to Mandy about why it would not work. Apart from the shots not looking attractive, nothing was structured so the conversation comes across as everyone talking over each other. As soon as i watched the rushes i explained to Mandy that this scene should be either re-shot or cut. It is still unsure if this scene will make the final DVD.
Day 3 was in one location. It was in the bungalow of Brenda and Terry, a couple who had has a son who needed care. Their son (David) now lives in his own bungalow. It was a simple set up of an interview and the shoot went without any problem. We popped to David’s bungalow on the way home to get some cutaways.
Day 4 was a nice sunny day so as our first location had a nice garden, i decided to shoot outside. The interview was with a carer and conducted by Lizzie from the council. I wanted to shoot outside as it broke up the DVD. Every interview had been indoors at this point, so i wanted a visual change. This did create a few new problems however. The garden was near a main road so every now and then they’d be a loud noise that was picked up on the tie mics. Also there were lack of power leads, so lighting was all done by natural light, which looked nice enough but we had to be careful of shadows. On this day though, Dale the editor was present, so it was good for him to see how we were filming everything so he could understand it more when it came to editing. The second location was back to life path trust to film more about other options they provide.
The 5th day, was in the editing room, going though the rushes. Noting what takes we useable and what was not. I sat with Dale as he went through the footage and explained what was needed where, and the message needed to be put across. During this day Mandy arranged two more days of shooting. Mostly with professionals talking about their role with helping with care.
The shoot went relatively smoothly, so there’s not a great deal to write about. It was all down to planning and preparation. We knew where we going to be and what we were filming before the day of filming, this meant we were able to get in and set up and film quickly, sticking to a tight schedule. Like i’ve mentioned, there were a few issues i would improve on, mostly been more vocal about what i think will work on film, and dealing with sometimes awkward people. It has been a brilliant learning curve though, and all the way through the shoot i was a professional media producer.
