Shoot 2 Evaluation

This shoot day started off extremely stressfully because just before I woke up Harrison messaged me saying he couldn't come as he had an emergency, where his girlfriend had to go to hospital. This panicked me straight away because I hadn't even considered he wouldn't come so I had no idea what to do about lighting or what film camera to use. After I calmed myself down I started to weigh up my options. I could try to re-arrange the shoot to another day, but run the risk of leaving it too late and the studios or models not being available; or I could film it myself. I decided to shoot the footage that day as the studio was booked and all my team, accept Harrison, could make it. I decided that if it was a complete disaster, I could find a time to re-shoot it. I had studied photography at college and university and so felt confident that I could produce an acceptable image quality.

After spending a couple hours doing the hair and makeup on the model I started to set the lights up; however I realised that I was not trained on the filming lights and so could not use them. I was trained on photography lights, but they were not continuous and so would not work with film. I spoke to Chris Overend and he said I could use the soft box lights already installed in the film studio for an overall light source; however I explained that I needed to use a spot light on my model. He said the only thing he could suggest would be using the modelling bulbs on a photography light; however it would not be as strong as the soft boxes and the light would be a different temperature. I experimented with using coloured gels to make the warm toned light look more natural; however the modelling bulb was not strong enough to be seen over the soft box lights. I felt very frustrated that I was not trained on the filming lights because it meant I would have to improvise with an alternative lighting set up that may not achieve the lighting I had envisioned. I decided to use the same bright torch I used in my storyboard, together with my phone torch, as the spot light because it was strong enough to show up over the soft box lights when they were dimmed right down.

I first tried to shoot on my camera and the lens that came with it; however this did not give me a good enough quality image. I was advised by my model, who had used a camera to film before, to use the Mark IV camera; however there were non of these available and I wasn't trained on them anyway. I decided to use the 550D and a 25-80mm lens as they achieved much better quality and it worked more effectively in low lighting. Even though I was happy with the quality, I knew that the quality would be even better if Harrison had shot it on his filming camera, which I found very frustrating. Looking back, I learned that I always need to have a plan B because things can always go wrong. As I knew I was shooting a film, I should have asked Chris Overend what my options were about being trained on a film camera, in the event that I might have to shoot it myself. However I am happy with how the footage turned out and look forward to editing it all together.

It took a lot longer to do the model's hair than expected because I was being extremely careful with every step to make sure it looked perfect and I was very pleased with how it turned out. The colour of the hair extensions matched my model's hair perfectly, the strips of hair were pulled tightly and the plaits looked tight and neat. I had practised the makeup look before; however this was the first time I had seen the hair and makeup together and I was really pleased with how the dark eyes and simplistic face complemented the caged hair as it didn't look too fussy or over done.

Example of image taken.

I was very impressed with the behind the scene images because the photographer had my list with her and ticked all the images as she went. They were all in focus and she captured the team working successfully. I will decide which will go on my website at a later date, once I have finished filming and have all the images to choose from.

Once I had decided on the camera and set up the lighting, I was able to film all the clips I wanted very quickly and efficiently. I used my storyboard and ticked off each clip when I was happy we had achieved them, making it easy to know exactly what I needed to film. I felt like I had more control over exactly how each shot looked because I was filming it, rather than having to explain to Harrison how I wanted each shot to look, which was time consuming. If I was able to use the film cameras and the film lighting, I think I would have filmed the whole film myself because I felt more relaxed and in control; however this was not possible so I chose to use Harrison to get the desired film quality.