M.P - Reflection on shoot

We filmed out opening sequence at St.Thomas a Beckett church near Tonbridge. We arrived on location at 10 and left at 4. We started filming around 10.40 and began with the outside shots first.

Contribution

• The props I was responsible for bringing were the flowers that the protagonist would put down by the grave and the skateboard used for the last stunt 
• Gave the actress directions on what to do in the shot for example the shot where she has to look afraid because her is raising
• Set up the candle stunt and did the stunt for the shoot 
• Shot the establishing shot using the track with Kurtis
• Helped set up different shots
• Held the boom for some of the shots for example I held it for the shot when our actress is screaming. I also kicked the skateboard for this shot to make sure it went a good distance.
• I shot some of the shots. One particular shot I did was when using the slider and it was a shot where our protagonist walks up the aisle to a pew
• Lifted the hair for the hair raising stunt with Kurtis using fishing wire 
  
  
• As a group we all cleared away all the equipment such as the power leads,props,lights and camera equipment

The shots I thought that went well was the hair raising shot. This is because the position of the character was composed well. She was sitting upright, the shot was a side view and the hair slowly raised one piece at a time. This shot is very effective as the fishing wire we used for the stunt is not visible. Another shot which went well was the shot when the candle falls of the pew. This is because the way the candle falls off is very sudden and fits very well in the screen. 

Challenges we faced were:

• When shooting outside, using the fog machine, the wind was very heavy and it would blow in different directions. It was out of our control so to solve this problem, we tried using coats to fan the fog in the direction we wanted however it didn't work consistently. Therefore we had to wait for the wind to change which it eventually did.
• The actress had nail varnish on and we could not get rid of it. This was a problem because nail varnish would not have been around in Victorian times. To overcome this challenge when her hand was it shot, we made her curve her fingers inwards towards her palm so her nails were not visible.
• When I first tested out pulling the candle off, when the candle hit the floor it a section off the bottom broke off and therefore would not fit into the candle holder we had. To overcome this, I had to cut the candle to make it even and use cellotape to place it back into the holder. 
• As the day went on, the sunlight was less bright therefore the shots were too dark in certain places of the church therefore we used a phone torch which did work. 
• As the church open to the public throughout the day, there were people who would be  inside the church and outside. Luckily, the visitors were inside the church when we were filming outside and we did not have any interruptions while filming inside however when we were filming outside, visitors were in the background of our shots so we had to wait for them to move. This did not take up too much time. 

Overall, we stuck to the story board which the framing and shots. However we did decide to not film some of the shots that were on the storyboard. This was due to time as we knew we would not be able to get the main shots in the time limit we had if we included other ones on the storyboard that were not of high importance. When we were at the church, we also added some shots and actions e.g. a shot of our protagonist doing a catholic symbol before sitting down. We shot this from behind and also chose to shot it from the front view but at a long distance behind the big wooden cross at the front of the church. 

For the next shoot, we can make sure we have better time keeping as the key holders came 20 minutes earlier than we had expected causing us to hurry the last shots. We could have an extra person on set to help us set up and down as it did also take up a considerable amount of time.