Production - Shoot Day 16 Go Kart Sequence

The majority of the karting sequence is complete, with the only part left to film being the PTC where I speak about why we are at the track and also it’s significance in my story.  Cailan had captured the race footage back in January and I had filmed the drone footage a few weeks ago so this is all that was left to do. We were due to film this last time but Cailan was ill and this meant we would not have a camera operator for this shoot. Therefore we wanted to ensure he was available so we waited until Saturday 23rd where we would film this PTC.

We had practised this PTC twice before so we were confident in producing a high quality sequence with good answers. I decided against a “walk and talk” for this segment as I did not want the whole documentary to have a copy and paste visual style in which we could not flex our creativity. Therefore this sequence would be static on a tripod where I speak just off camera with the kart track in the background. As it was a somewhat controlled environment I spent some time working on the framing, positioning and eyeline before we started filming. The plans I created before the shoot helped us set up quickly and allowed us to all be on the same wavelength when filming.

Shotlist - Go Karting

• Alex driving to karting M/S
• Car driving up the slope to car park W/S [Looking down towards hut]
• Alex greeting staff at circuit W/S
• Alex signing on W/S, C/U on signing the form
• Alex standing behind the barrier, with circuit behind him. M/S [Explaining to George why this is important]
• Drone shot karts on track - Start of race, flying in opposite direction to karts to create speed. M/S
• Karts on track M/S,C/U [Focus on Alex with moving camera that you will be using] 
• One Static Camera capture UC/U shots we can layer mask. One static camera W/S. One static Camera M/S [3 or 4 races so cameras can
• Alex crossing finish line to win M/S, Next race, focus on chequered flag C/U
• Alex on the podium, getting medal M/S, Alex looking happy/smiling C/U

We were lucky once again to be graced with good weather conditions as the overcast nature of the day ensured that takes were not too dissimilar to one another so we could work around the best take in the edit. Visually this scene looked exactly how I had envisioned when planning and my decision to change the location where this scene was shot allowed the sequence to be more diverse cinematically. The tested shot did not give much depth perception of the track and I wanted to ensure this new angle did. I am much happier with this new angle and I am very happy that I decided to change it. I could see us receiving the same criticism for this sequence as the Diary Room if we had stayed with the old shot because it did not give the viewer enough of a clue as to where we were.

While I like the cinematic appearance of this scene I was disappointed in myself as a contributor in this segment. While I did give passionate answers I felt it took a long time for me to give the correct answer which was undoubtedly frustrating for the crew. I got good “commentary” in the end but this did take longer than expected and this could be because I had not rehearsed what I was going to say as much as I should have. Even if I had gone through what I said in the script a few more times I am sure it would have taken less time. But we managed to get takes which are what we need and when Cailan and I put these into a timeline to pick out the best takes, we ended up typically having 4/5 good, usable takes for each scene.

While I admit that this section could have gone more smoothly, enabling us to wrap sooner, I am happy we managed to get what was needed. I will speak more about the issues I faced as a contributor in a future blog post which will look into what I could be doing better as a contributor to ensure sequences like this are smoother in the future. This will look into how I can better “work under pressure”, this will be on my blog within the next week.

Overall I think today's shoot had its issues on my part but after around 10 clean takes we managed to get some great answers which will slot nicely into a timeline. I will be working with the editor on how to best edit this sequence as doing it how I first envisioned may not work any more. My initial plan was to edit in a montage in-between each answer but after further thought and reviewing the answers I am not sure that this will work. As Cailan is editing this I have given him a possible idea of how this sequence can work and I will then decide if it works with the tone set throughout. My new idea is to have the questions back to back with some b-roll covering the gaps between questions and then, after I finish what I’m saying, we will have a quick montage which ends in a voice-over explaining how the weekends racing went. I am confident that this is the way forward for this scene but I am happy to change if it fits our tone and Cailan gives me feedback on how he thinks it can work. I am looking forward to seeing this in the timeline as I think this is a scene that can properly show my passion for karting and motorsport.