After George had arranged a day with Steven to film this we all came together to ensure the day was a success. We had allowed a similar amount of time to last time but as we had a much better idea of how the day would run we were confident of a successful shoot day. Along with Cailan, we had Connor on a handheld camera as can be seen on the plans. The now four camera setup would allow us to have a vast range of shots to pick between. This was my main reason for including the Sony on an ultra wide as I thought it was worth making sure this camera didn’t go to waste, because we did not use it last time. You can see the four camera shots that I planned below and personally I think with the new lighting they look fantastic. The dynamic lighting allows the scene to have much more depth and I am happy we took the time to re-film as I think it will allow this scene to have much more of an impact on the viewer.
As a director, I think I did a great job in showing the crew what I wanted and then allowing them all to concentrate on what they needed to be doing. In the last Diary Room shoot I was far too worried about what everyone was doing and this ended up affecting my role as contributor. Having learned where I needed to back off from my role allowed me to give much better answers, which will really help the story have more depth and meaning. It was hard to find the balance but I think I managed to do it on today's shoot which meant the whole day went a lot smoother than the last time we filmed it. The subtle changes to the camera plans also allowed Connor to be in the right position [so I was looking to the right side of frame] as well as meaning the track and dolly movements could be much smoother. One big change from last time was the position of the “set” which meant that everyone had more space. We also had a stunning backdrop which really emphasised the importance of this scene. The cars in the background along with the additional and more detailed lighting allows the viewer to definitely know they are in a car garage.
As with last time we used the clip mic for audio and once again that provided us with really clean audio which will ensure both the visuals and audio are on the same level. Along with this we recorded miscellaneous shots around the workshop plus outside which allowed us to have introductory shots, if needed, when in the edit. This follows on from lessons learnt at the very start of this project. These lessons are allowing us to ensure we have no issues when finding possible cutaways of introduction shots in the edit. I am very happy that we have maintained this dedication to ensuring we have every possible shot. It’s really going to help us in the edit and will give us choices we may otherwise have had.
While I am happier that this shoot went much better visually, we were restricted by the number of lights that we had available to us. We had the large Roto light as the main and two further large LED lights amongst further small LED’s from George and Connor, but were still restricted. While the scene is undoubtedly much better, I would say that if we had further lights available I could have lit this scene exactly how I wanted. On certain camera shots there is more “dead” space than I would have liked and that’s because we didn’t have the amount of lights needed to cover such a large space. This was probably the one issue with changing positions within the workshop as it meant we had more space to fill. But I think the slight dead space in one shot is better than being restricted by the backdrop [Cars] and the space we had available to us. On set there were no other issues and I think today went really well and much better than the first time we shot this sequence. I think it was well worth re-shooting and, as director, I wanted to show that I am being creative with this project. The last time issues outside of our control meant we came away with an imperfect sequence.
When reviewing the footage, all of the shots looked much better than last time which is exactly what I wanted. The only thing that I was aware of when reviewing the footage was that some of the track and dolly shots may not sync up well with the static wide/medium/close ups that we filmed. It’s hard to tell how these will look until they are in a timeline and edited. I know that some are usable and that’s what is important, I just hope that the good movements are on the takes where I did well as a contributor. Today went well and I felt much more natural as a contributor which led to a much better “performance” on camera. It allowed this whole sequence to be much better and I am really excited to see how this looks when edited. It was a successful day and we addressed all of Simon’s criticisms from last time and actively worked out a day that would fit into our busy filming schedule to make sure this scene was exactly what we wanted. I am very thankful to the whole crew as their dedication to making this project a reality is allowing us to have a number of fantastic shoot dates. I want to keep up this run of successful shoot dates as I feel we are in a really good place as a team right now and I am excited to see how the next shoot goes.
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