Yesterday, we had our third filming session.
Period 1, me and Amy:
- Period one, me and Amy:
- Collected the camera and tripod and check that it was all good to go
- Got Amy's bag of clothes for filming from her car in a nearby road
- Got Amy changed into her first costume as she'd travelled to school in uniform
- Did her heavy makeup (to suit her character)
- I shared my plans of what we could fit into the time and contextual factors and should therefore do that day
- Made sure that we were fully prepared for the start of period two to make full use of our time
- Filmed a section on the bench that didn't need anyone but us involved in.
Periods 2+3:
- We were supposed to meet Sophie and Rhys in the common room.
- Rhys showed up first so we explained the rough outline of the storyline and locations we'd be using today.
- Then he went off to get changed into his first costume - he'd brought jeans, converses and an american-style t-shirt which was suitable for his part.
- He phoned me after almost ten minutes saying that there were younger students in the changing rooms so he couldn't get changed, so I said to just get changed in the boys toilets as we didn't have time to wait.
- Sophie still wasn't in or around the common room, and after asking around, nobody had seen her in school at all.
- Rhys came out in his costume, and with Kelsie who also had the same frees and wanted to take part in our media piece. We said yes as we could use an extra anyway, and she would fit in the car.
- Amy said that Sophie wasn't answering her mobile, but perhaps she'd forgotten we were filming and would be in our media class, so we went up there.
- She was there, so we got her and explained what we wanted to film and where, and said that we'd film random things as extra footage along the way.
- Sophie then took the camera and filmed me and Rhys walking down the stairs together in case we could use that for something. (From watching the footage after, it was obvious that this part had been spontaneous, as the lighting was terrible.)
- As we were leaving the school grounds to walk to a local side road where Amy's car was parked, Amy and Sophie took turns in filming random footage of me and Rhys with the intention of converying a 'harmoneous' relationship.
- We talked through possible editing techniques and effects we could use to enhance our work - jump cuts to add to the post-modern feel, and increasing the saturation to provoke a warm, summer/love code.
- As we got to the car Amy and Rhys got in whilst me and Sophie found a suitable lampost for me to walk into, which allowed Amy's car able to also be visible in the shot.
- We then filmed me miming words walking towards the camera with the lampost in the foreground coming from one direction, closely followed by Amy and Rhys driving past, however it wasn't ideal.
- Amy and Sophie said that we could approach it from a different angle, so as Amy reversed back up the road, I switched to the other side of the lampost and we re-filmed that line.
- Sophie filmed a bit through the passenger window with Rhys having been told to "look uncomfortable" by me, in the foreground and Amy looking pleased with herself behind him; driving.
- Sophie then filmed from Amy's window and then from infront - through the windscreen, for a wide variety of shots we could choose the best from.
- Finally, Sophie recorded me walking into the lamppost. After doing this a few times it wasn't looking right, because I was looking in the wrong direction. We then did it a few more times with me looking in the right direction.
- Next, Amy drove us to Ray Park, about 5 minutes from our school.
- To get to the park itself we had to walk down a long path, so along here we filmed random shots of the greenery and eachother to have as back-up material.
- When we got to the park there were a few children in it, so to avoid complications we stayed outside of the park and filmed in the opposite direction, clips of me and Rhys playing "it", etc.
- After a short while, all but one child left, so as the park was large we could easily record in one corner of the park without affecting anybody else at all.
- We managed to record on some outside gym equipment, baby swings and a sea-saw.
- Then we saw a roundabout and swings that would be ideal to use, but two more children and their guardians arrived, so we felt it would be necessary to ask their permission to film in the park, highlighting the fact that their children wouldn't be in our recordings at all. The first parent was 100% fine with it, however the second one didn't speak English, and kept saying "no". Although she explained she didn't know what I was saying, I couldn't get the message through to her so we had to accept "no" as her answer, and left the park.
- When we got back to school we filmed a piece on an abandoned armchair, left outdoors at our school, surrounded by rubbish and a giant mound of dirt. This we thought would make interesting mise-en-scene and suit the main character's state of mind - a mess basically.
- We recorded me sat on the chair, jumping on the chair in anger and then grabbing Amy and going to shove her face in the giant pile of dirt (but stopping just in time).
