Shoot day reflection

 Last Friday (March 4th) my group and I recorded our final draft of our opening title sequence.

our day started at 8:30 when we all met on campus, in our classroom and began to get all fo our equipment ready for transport to our location. at about 9:20 we left campus with all the equipment and made our way to Peaslake to set up and start shooting. 

once we got to our location (Peaslake house), we met up with Stu and his daughter Elodie and made our way up to his flat to begin setting up. 

Once we finished setting up at round 10:30,  Annie and I started practicing the first panning shot of the table. To do this, I operated the camera, while Annie helped be push the tripod so that we could pan around the table 

After we Practiced that shot enough we began filming at 10:40. the first shot that we did was the panning shot around the table. after we finished this we moved on to close ups of Elodie and Stu playing monopoly. for this we had to get them to create a set routine that they would perform on the board every time we did a separate take, this is so we can stitch all of the diffrent shots together and still have consistent movement and dialogue.

 We then began shooting scenes with dialogue between the father and daughter characters. For this we needed to plug in the mic and have someone hold the mic while shooting. 

After shooting these scenes we moved on to shooting extreme close ups of the monopoly board for the titles.  To do this we had to switch the lens to a zoom lens and switch out the tripod for one without wheels so that we could go lower to the ground.  for this we did shots that lasted a duration of 20 seconds so that the audience had time to read the titles (the shots will be cropped to appropriate lengthy during editing process). we also used pull focus so that we could use two items per shot as the focal point. we needed to film at least 10 title shots for this.

After this we then moved on to doing the main transition shot of the title sequence. for this we needed to move the tripod behind Stu and gradually move the camera behind his back while his daughter ducks underneath the table to create the illusion that she has disappeared. for this shot we first needed to practice the movement of the tripod with the same technique that we used when doing the first panning shot (Annie guiding the tripod and me guiding the camera)

for the final shot of the evening was the kitchen scene. in the kitchen scene we see the father character making coffee and then burning himself. this scene was one of the most difficult shots to get due to the amount of space in the kitchen that we had to use. since we could only fit about three people in Stu's kitchen since the tripod took so much space up, we all had to cram into a corner while shooting.