J.D Reflection On Shoot 2

1.  When and where was the shoot?

• The shoot was at Hamish's house on the 24th of January 2015, (two weeks after the first shoot).

2. What scenes were you focusing on?

• The scenes which we needed to focus on during this shoot were the chase scene because we had a following shot, but no in front shots, meaning the scene became very long and unbroken, with these new shots we will cut up the chase into smaller cuts.
• we also needed to focus on getting reaction shots for the original 'psychiatrist' scene, mainly of the psychiatrist's face, as dialogue would be broken if we cut up the shot of the protagonist.
• We also had a dire need to re-shoot the kitchen scene as the coughing fit was unprompted and necessary, it was also far too long so it required shortening, or having a faster cutting rate.
• The stair scene also required a re-shoot as it became apparent at the time of editing that the camera was neither level or positioned correctly, we also took this opportunity to take a larger variation of angled shots, to give the scene a faster cutting rate.

 3. What was your individual contribution to the shoot?

• My role during the shoot was varied, for the stair scene and chase scene I was, as before, required to act (playing the antagonist, TopHat) however I played a major role in camera work, as I helped decide both the positioning and angle of the camera. I was also the stedicam controller, which was used for both kitchen scene and psychiatrist scene. 

 4. To what extent did your storyboard affect your use of camera and framing?

• The story board played a minor part in this second shoot, as by now we had moved on from the use of the story board, as a large portion of the story was already changed in the first shoot, so we were working on a different timeline to the storyboard. 

5. What do you think worked particularly well?

•  once again we used a longboard during the chase scene shoot, however this time we had the camera facing backwards with our camera man facing forward, meaning it is a smoother ride, because there is focus on keeping the longboard smooth, rather than focussing on only the camera, we also used a pull focus on the note in the kitchen scene which worked well as it creates a build up to finding out what is written on the note.

6. What were the challenges of this particular shoot

• There was a pressure on us during this shoot to keep the continuity between two shoots, as the shoots were 2 weeks apart, obviously things change meaning, we had a great deal of time spent referring back to the old footage to make sure that everything we did was I keeping with the other shoot. 

7. How will you use this experience to inform your next shoot?

• we have all the footage we need so the likelihood of another shot is minimal, but if we were to take something away from the shoots I would say we have discovered that more angles and a faster cutting rate is better than a long running shot in some circumstances as it keeps the audience engaged.

 Above: An on set discussion on the possible locations of the camera for the 'stair scene'

Above: Image showing my location on set, before the jump scare on the stairs before I drop down behind an unsuspecting protagonist, Allen Daniels (portrayed by Daniel Allen)

Above: Image showing our camera man, Hamish, on the long board filming the chase scene, as you can see the camera is held out to his right, as the actors run behind, and he focusses on keeping a straight line.