Filming progress blog

This week I have attended 4 filming sessions for 3 separate films. The first session that I attended was for the film "A Stolen Mind" which is being directed by Chloe Handley. The shoot took place on Monday the 7th of march and my role was director of photography. During the shoot I was responsible for the framing lighting and all general camera work. I also kept an eye on continuity and made sure that none of the crew or equipment were caught in any reflections in shot. The shoot went very smoothly and we managed to film all of the required scenes very quickly.
The second film session that took place on the 8th of march, was for the same film and once again I had the same role fulfilling all of the same tasks. This shoot was also very successful.
The third shoot took place on the 9th of march and was for the Film "Exposure" which I was responsible for directing. As director I was responsible for keeping everything organised and giving the actors instructions so that they knew exactly what they were doing and could create the scene that I wanted. I think I did a good job as director as I knew exactly what I wanted to happen although I did find it much more difficult than I was expecting probably due to the fact that there was 8 actors on set that we were using as well as the crew. I wanted to film a total of 3 scenes but we only managed to film the first to and most of the third as we still have a few shots that we had to miss out due to time restraints and the fact that we also had a limited time to film scenes for "No good deed done".
The fourth shoot also took place on the 9th and was for the film "No good deed done" that was directed by Matthew Dickens. I retook the role of director of photography and for fulfilled all of the necessary. This shoot also went well however we did not get everything that we need filmed due to time and makeup taking longer than expected.

For the second week of filming I attended 3 filming sessions once again for 3 separate films. The first session that I attended was for the film "A Stolen Mind" where I reclaimed the role of D.O.P. The shoot took place on Tuesday the 15th of march. The first half of the shoot took place at college and went very smoothly. There were no real problems and everything went down without a hitch. For the second part of the shoot we had to go on location to one of our crew members houses in Billingham. During the shoot I was responsible for all of the usual things. The main issue that we had with filming was how to get the lighting to the level that we wanted it. The scene was supposed to be taking place on a night time but of course we were only able to film during the day, so tried to make the room darker by closing the curtains to the room. However this caused the quality of our footage to become significantly less. You could see that the footage was a lot grainier and so we used my phones flash light to give the room some more light. We managed to film all of the scenes that we needed to during the filming session which meant that "A Stolen Mind" was wrapped and filming had completely finished.
The second shoot of the week, which took place on Wednesday the 16th of march, was for the film "No Good Deed Done" Where I also took on the role of D.O.P. We filmed in a restaurant in Yarm called Lucias from 3 onwards however we had to stop a little earlier than we expected due to the change in lights and audio. This means that we will have to return to the restaurant during the pick up week to film the scenes that we couldn't get done. Other than that small issue the shoot went very well and everything that we did manage to get was of good quality.
The Last shoot of the week was for my film "Exposure" It took place on Thursday the 17th of march at Pizza Express in Teesside park. I conducted the role of Director for this shoot. The shoot went very well and we managed to film everything I needed. However one of the actors was unable to attend the shoot and so his scenes will have to be moved into the pick up week. I was very pleases with the footage that was captured and thought that the whole shoot was very successful. I feel that the second shoot went a lot smoother than the first one and that I was able to complete my role as director much easier. I believe that this was because of the fact that I had a little bit more experience and so was more prepared and also due to the fact that I was working with fewer people which meant that there would be a lot less interference. With that shoot day completed I only needed one day within the pick up week to complete the filming process and collect everything that I need.

During the pick up week I attended  2 filming session. One for my film "Exposure" and one for Matty's film "No Good Deed Done".
The first film session that took place was for my film, it took place on Tuesday the 22nd of march and was filmed within college. The shoot took place so that we could capture the footage that we missed from the first film and session and the footage that we were unable to film due to a member of the cast being unavailable. The shoot went very smoothly and everything was shot as fast as possible. We finished filming faster than I had estimated and that meant that all filming for exposure was completed.
The second shoot that took place was for "No Good Deed Done". This took place on Wednesday the 23rd of march when we returned to the restaurant Lucias to capture the few scenes that we missed due to the changes in lighting and sound that halted the original shoot. This once again was completed very quickly and also meant that "No Good Deed Done" could be wrapped up with all that is left to do is editing.