Production Diary
Tuesday 10th November 2015
We aimed to complete two scenes on this day at two outside locations within two hours. We decided on setting this time limit, because filming at this time of the year means you have the daylight quickly eroding, and therefore picture quality and continuity will take a dip.
Firstly, we filmed on location on the Blow's Downs, where only a couple of shots were required. However, due to the tricky nature of the terrain, it did take us a little while to set things up and find the best shot possible. Although we had our shot log to hand, we had to take it with a pinch of salt in these times, because the wind was very strong on this particular day, and therefore we had to somewhat work around it. However, we did get all the shots required at a very good quality. There is minor wind noise, but this is not too much of an issue, because there is no dialogue in this scene. If needs be, free software such as Audacity can take away the most unpleasant wind noise.
Our next location on the same day was to visit some traffic lights in Dunstable. Our original location recce shows the lights controlling the A505 and Great Northern Road/Station Road, but we figured that this would be an incredibly impractical spot to film in, thanks largely to the amount of traffic, people, and general noise. We chose a new location - Katherine Drive. Whilst this still has some traffic and pedestrians, it's far more manageable. Thanks to the impressive depth of field on the DSLR camera we were using for this production, we could easily blur out all registration plates in the background whilst keeping the object of interest in focus throughout. As you can see from the location picture below, things did get darker fairly early, but we feel this wouldn't ruin any continuity as long as we showed events happening in chronological order (not skipping randomly through day and night). Though it took many takes, we got all the shots we needed just within the two hour timeframe we gave ourselves. We considered this overall to be a successful and productive session of filming.
Wednesday 11th November 2015
We decided to film another scene today, which involved the main character played by Connor being diagnosed with cancer, and where he meets the devil for the first time. This is a fundamental part of our teaser trailer, and it's therefore important that we did all of this in a professional manner, in order to benefit ourselves in the future. It took a long time to set the equipment up and prep the location for the mise en scene, and as a result, we did not complete all the shots we planned to film on that session. The two factors that stopped us on this occasion was that it was getting very late (we started filming after school hours), and that the battery on the camera died. It does therefore mean we will have to come back to this location in due course in order to finish our filming. Other than that, the shots that did actually come out from this looked polished and very usable.
Friday 13th November 2015
Today was another filming session in a new location - with this being at Connor's house. A majority of the shots were to be filmed at this location, and thanks to our limited time frame of two hours, it was always going to be unlikely that we were going to get everything filmed without taking unprofessional shortcuts. A chunk of time was taken to set up all the equipment, and to give a brief to Holly and Beth over exactly what they would need to do for filming. Conditions were good, and a vast majority of shots came out well (although one was out of focus). Time was spent having to learn some of the larger lines, but we believe we were pretty much as efficient as we could possibly have been. However, we will have to revisit this location soon with Beth and Holly in order to re-film the defocused shot, and complete the rest of the shots listed on the shot log. If we had more time, I believe we would've finished all filming in this location, and therefore in most aspects, today's session was a success.
Wednesday 18th November 2015
We revisited the location of Neil's house today, to film a couple of scenes that we didn't have time for previously, and then to re-film some scenes that we weren't quite happy with last time. We had a two hour time limit for today, which meant we had to find a fine balance of getting as much done in the limited amount of time, but to also not rush things so that the videos come out looking of very poor quality. The session was mostly successful, because we kept a very close eye on making sure the continuity was as close as possible to our previous session, otherwise all the footage we would've shot today would be useless. Luckily, a vast majority of the shots we filmed on this day came out successfully, but a few were slightly out of focus, and the framing on a few shots aren't what we desired. This does possibly mean we will have to go back to re-film a section, but on the other hand, we have purposely shot enough footage to be able to leave some out if needs be. Overall, this session was mostly successful, and it has put our time to good use.
Later on in the same day, we revisited the meeting room to carry on with the filming we started when we last filmed in this location. Last time, we were limited by the battery in the camera, and it was the same in this case, too. Nevertheless, we did get a decent amount of additional footage in this session, though it did take us longer to set up than Connor's house, due to the limitations of space in the meeting room itself. We didn't finish all of the shots before the camera died once again, but because we took our time, it has shown that we will not need to re-film any shots from today's session.
Thursday 19th November 2015
Today we revisited the meeting room for the third and final time, to get all the shots required for the scene in the doctor's office. There wasn't too many shots left to film, but all required careful consideration of the placement of the camera. Therefore, one or two of our shots were not good enough to be used in the final cut, however we purposely filmed more shots than we needed to compensate for this predictable occurrence. Our main issues were that one shot was slightly out of focus, and another shot had unwanted items in the frame. However, I believe we made a very good job of the small space available, and more importantly, we got everything we intended to do done.
Shot Log
Introduction
A shot log is used to analyse all of our clips and highlights whether they are usable or not and why that may be. The shot log will be a fantastic reference to editing, as it will allow us to quickly see what shot to include in the final edit at a quick glance. This is a big task, due to the amount of shots that were completed, so all of the group will have a contribution at completing this task. Each new document represents a new scene in the production.
Scene 1, Connor's house
Scene 3, Katherine Drive
Scene 4, Connor's House (part 2)
Tuesday 10th November 2015
We aimed to complete two scenes on this day at two outside locations within two hours. We decided on setting this time limit, because filming at this time of the year means you have the daylight quickly eroding, and therefore picture quality and continuity will take a dip.
Firstly, we filmed on location on the Blow's Downs, where only a couple of shots were required. However, due to the tricky nature of the terrain, it did take us a little while to set things up and find the best shot possible. Although we had our shot log to hand, we had to take it with a pinch of salt in these times, because the wind was very strong on this particular day, and therefore we had to somewhat work around it. However, we did get all the shots required at a very good quality. There is minor wind noise, but this is not too much of an issue, because there is no dialogue in this scene. If needs be, free software such as Audacity can take away the most unpleasant wind noise.
 |
| Looking up to our filming location. It's a quiet part of the Downs. |
 |
| Walking up the very steep incline, all feeling the burn. |
Our next location on the same day was to visit some traffic lights in Dunstable. Our original location recce shows the lights controlling the A505 and Great Northern Road/Station Road, but we figured that this would be an incredibly impractical spot to film in, thanks largely to the amount of traffic, people, and general noise. We chose a new location - Katherine Drive. Whilst this still has some traffic and pedestrians, it's far more manageable. Thanks to the impressive depth of field on the DSLR camera we were using for this production, we could easily blur out all registration plates in the background whilst keeping the object of interest in focus throughout. As you can see from the location picture below, things did get darker fairly early, but we feel this wouldn't ruin any continuity as long as we showed events happening in chronological order (not skipping randomly through day and night). Though it took many takes, we got all the shots we needed just within the two hour timeframe we gave ourselves. We considered this overall to be a successful and productive session of filming.
 |
| This area is much quieter than our original location, and therefore hiding registration plates and faces was very manageable. |
Wednesday 11th November 2015
We decided to film another scene today, which involved the main character played by Connor being diagnosed with cancer, and where he meets the devil for the first time. This is a fundamental part of our teaser trailer, and it's therefore important that we did all of this in a professional manner, in order to benefit ourselves in the future. It took a long time to set the equipment up and prep the location for the mise en scene, and as a result, we did not complete all the shots we planned to film on that session. The two factors that stopped us on this occasion was that it was getting very late (we started filming after school hours), and that the battery on the camera died. It does therefore mean we will have to come back to this location in due course in order to finish our filming. Other than that, the shots that did actually come out from this looked polished and very usable.
 |
| Equipment included 1 DSLR camera, 1 Rode boom microphone, 2 tripods (one for the camera, and one to act as a boom pole), 1 set of dolly wheels to aid smooth panning, and 1 softbox light. |
Friday 13th November 2015
Today was another filming session in a new location - with this being at Connor's house. A majority of the shots were to be filmed at this location, and thanks to our limited time frame of two hours, it was always going to be unlikely that we were going to get everything filmed without taking unprofessional shortcuts. A chunk of time was taken to set up all the equipment, and to give a brief to Holly and Beth over exactly what they would need to do for filming. Conditions were good, and a vast majority of shots came out well (although one was out of focus). Time was spent having to learn some of the larger lines, but we believe we were pretty much as efficient as we could possibly have been. However, we will have to revisit this location soon with Beth and Holly in order to re-film the defocused shot, and complete the rest of the shots listed on the shot log. If we had more time, I believe we would've finished all filming in this location, and therefore in most aspects, today's session was a success.
 |
| Equipment is exactly the same as Wednesday's entry. Located to the right (and hiding) is Beth and Holly, who played roles in our teaser trailer as a partner and a friend |
Wednesday 18th November 2015
We revisited the location of Neil's house today, to film a couple of scenes that we didn't have time for previously, and then to re-film some scenes that we weren't quite happy with last time. We had a two hour time limit for today, which meant we had to find a fine balance of getting as much done in the limited amount of time, but to also not rush things so that the videos come out looking of very poor quality. The session was mostly successful, because we kept a very close eye on making sure the continuity was as close as possible to our previous session, otherwise all the footage we would've shot today would be useless. Luckily, a vast majority of the shots we filmed on this day came out successfully, but a few were slightly out of focus, and the framing on a few shots aren't what we desired. This does possibly mean we will have to go back to re-film a section, but on the other hand, we have purposely shot enough footage to be able to leave some out if needs be. Overall, this session was mostly successful, and it has put our time to good use.
 |
| Me with the microphone, Aaron, and Connor with the camera. We made sure to regularly switch roles. |
Thursday 19th November 2015
Today we revisited the meeting room for the third and final time, to get all the shots required for the scene in the doctor's office. There wasn't too many shots left to film, but all required careful consideration of the placement of the camera. Therefore, one or two of our shots were not good enough to be used in the final cut, however we purposely filmed more shots than we needed to compensate for this predictable occurrence. Our main issues were that one shot was slightly out of focus, and another shot had unwanted items in the frame. However, I believe we made a very good job of the small space available, and more importantly, we got everything we intended to do done.
Shot Log
Introduction
A shot log is used to analyse all of our clips and highlights whether they are usable or not and why that may be. The shot log will be a fantastic reference to editing, as it will allow us to quickly see what shot to include in the final edit at a quick glance. This is a big task, due to the amount of shots that were completed, so all of the group will have a contribution at completing this task. Each new document represents a new scene in the production.
Scene 1, Connor's house
Scene 2, Blow's Downs
Scene 3, Katherine Drive
Scene 4, Connor's House (part 2)
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