G. NEWS UNIT - TEST SHOOTS

Test shoots

1. 'LIVE' Handheld practice.

Myself and Jack wanted to work a little more with the Panasonic camera's, this was to enable us to learn and develop skills that we needed for the 'Live' segment of the package.

We decided that we didn't want audio on the test shoot as we hadn't rehearsed the script so we did' Rhubarb, Rhubarb' (A method that silent movie actors used).

We walked through the steps that we had planned on our Recce at cafe Nucleus, the idea was to have a PTC handheld, then I was to follow Jack up the pathway,(this was to establish where we were) then Jack would meet Victor in the Gazebo area, where he would reveal the food. 

I found that the camera did get heavy and was difficult to stop my arms from shaking but after a few practices we managed to film a clip (below) and was happy with the results.

On the day of the shoot, however, it was raining so we diced no to do the following shot, but we kept it handheld so I would be less restricted with my movements, panning down - across and up - this saved time and managed to get 3 good takes.

'The term pan is short for panoramic: the showing of an unbroken view of an area)' (Mercado, 2010:131)

Test shoot - for 'live'

2. Colour Grading.

One of the most challenging  tasks in post-production (my opinion) is colour grading, i can get carried away and end up doing more harm than good with the edit, in the real world of production, there would be someone who has that specific job, however if the shot looks good enough to start with it wouldn't need to much in edit.

Our next test was to get certain colours to pop, we took the chance to do this in the base room, whilst doing so we got some very sharp footage, I feature in this test shoot and I look sharp, this practise we took with us on our filming days, but we found that the better the lights where (fitted) on location the better the shots became, as in the base room the lights are already bright as was when we shot at the chemist, the effect didn't work when we set our own lights up and this is what we need to develop as a skill.

                                                           Test Shoot - Colour Grading

3. The sequence at Geraldine's house - our case study.

On our filming day, we had a script planned out, however, Our contributor's mother turned up and we took advantage of getting some extra footage, it may or may not have been used but if we diced that we wanted to re-structure our story then we had the chance to do so, we also shot different sequences ie: Geraldine coming down the stairs and exiting from the kitchen.

'The point to all camera work is to let the audience see the scene in the way you would like to present it to them' (Hampe, 2007:243)

From the test shot we realised that the opening sequence would fit as the introduction and that the content of the conversation with her and her mum (although interesting) did not fit the flow of what we were trying to achieve as an interview piece, however, if it was a documentary this sequence would have fitted very well in to what conventions of a documentary are.

below is the test shoot of the sequence - Audio has not been altered or the colour has not been corrected.

                                                              Test shoot - Sequence 

4. Possible sequence test shot.

After taking some notes on how to represent myself and who I am we filmed a sequence at a bed shop in Gillingham. 

There where many negatives about this test shot:

• Colour

- The overall colour of the walls at the location where yellow and we attempted to fix the colour on the day of the shoot and in post-production, the colour didn't work because it wasn't stylistic to fit with our branding and what we had already shot.

• Costume.

In the previous interview, I was in a mint suit, I looked smart and as a reporter, when it came to introducing Geraldine I looked and perceived myself to be someone totally different.

• Delivery.

There was too much information in the one-shot, I was giving away the story straight away when really I should have been drip-feeding the audience to keep them engaged.

I also got personal my saying 'my husband' that in the 'real' world could set a controversial view on myself as a public figure.

• Location. 

The overall Location was un-fitting to previous places, it lacked the character that we had built up with the material that we had.

CONCLUSION: After we viewed it within the rough cut we decided that there where to many flaws throughout that whole day shoot, so we decided not to use the footage, by taking it out the storey flowed better, next time I will make sure that we recce locations and shortened information that I am delivering, So we don't have to lose filming time by experiencing these errors after the fact.

             

                                                             Test shoot  - bed shop

Bibliography.

Mercado, G. (2010) the filmmaker's eye: Learning (and breaking) the rules of cinematic composition. Burlington: Focal Press.

Hampe, B. (2007) Making documentary films and videos: A practical guide to planning, filming and editing documentaries. (Second Edition) New York: Holt Paperback.