Filming: Day 2

My second filming day was on the 5th of February, starting at 2 o’clock and stopping at around 6 o’ clock.

On the first filming day, I followed the script exactly and found that some shots didn’t work or was to dark to do. Because of this, I decided that on my next filming day, I wouldn’t use any script and just shoot things I thought would work.

I started off with me just walking with the camera recording, going in and out the tunnels. As the light from the torches wasn’t enough to do the establishing shot, I did this all in the day. I was disappointed by this as I didn’t think that it would give the creepy feel I wanted however, the weather was very cloudy and fairly dark on the second day which helped. When walking around, if I thought something would look good in my trailer, I would shoot it. As I shot so much, I think that this will be good when editing as I will have a lot of choices there for me. So although, I don’t think I will be able to follow my script very well, I have a lot I can work with.

Being so free with my filming actually allowed me to shoot some great shots. For instance, as it was windy, there was a large metal door that kept banging shut on its own. Not only did it look good, it also gave me a great sound affect.

I thought this day was very successful, not only because I was freer without the script, but I had a lot more time. Not being restricted allowed me to think things through much more thoroughly and discuss with my helper and actor what shots I could do and how I could do them. I was also able to take many of the same shot to make sure that I had choices when it came to editing.

Having someone there that wasn’t an actor helped with lighting, organising and helping me with the camera when I needed to be in the shot.

The biggest problem I faced when I was there was that I only had one actor available. I originally wanted to retake some shots where the whole group was there but these might have to be replaced. Although having one actor was difficult, it did help with time issues, organising and noise. I found it so much easier to work with just the one actor and as a result, I thought it helped getting shots I wouldn’t normally have come up with.

The only major problem I had was that I wanted more shots with the ghost and the only character I had was the main investigator. As I had the same sort of hair, I tried doing these shots myself. The cameras screen was able to twist round so I could get a general idea of what it would look like before it was recorded. These shots took the longest as I had to go over and over them but I think that it was quite a success. I don’t think that the character will look noticeably different when I edit it together but it may mean that some previous shots may have to be cut out.

I decided to record the voices separately. I did this for many reasons. Firstly, it will allow me to be freer when editing it. I won’t have to put some unwanted shots in just because of the dialogue. Secondly, the recordings on the camera when the people are further away was poor, so having it separate meant that I could put the camera closer so hopefully, the quality will be better. I am unsure to how well I did these recordings though, however, if these seem to be a problem they are easy to redo.

Lighting was hardly an issue on this filming day. I decided to go up earlier when it was light so I could get all the establishing shots I needed. Some of the shots in the tunnels that were originally to dark were helped with the light coming from the end of the tunnel. I only had 2 torches to work with in this one but this wasn’t a problem at all.

Overall, I thought that this filming day was very successful. I don’t think that there was any major problems but if there are some shots from my script that didn’t quite work, I know that I have plenty of other shots I can change this for.