Lara McEvoy - 319311
Unit 13: Final Major Project
week 9: 1 - 5/4/24
Monday: 1/4/24
Due to the decision made last week, on Monday I messaged the three asking if they were around this week for the in-home interviews. I had mentioned the interviews at the dance show where the three said they were happy to take part in them so today (Monday 1/4/24) I messaged them asking when would best suit them. I felt letting the decision be made by them was the best decision because I was around all weeks so could organise my plans around filming with them.
​As shown in the image on the left, I sent the same initial message to all three and awaited on their responses. Chloe was the first to get back to me, asking if Wednesday would work, which it did, so I mentioned that I would sort timings later as I was wanting to wait for the others to get back to me first. However, as no one else had gotten back to me by 4ish so I asked Chloe whether she would prefer morning or afternoon just so I could gauge if I could fit another interview in within that day. Luckily, she said the morning so we decided to go for 10/10:30ish as I knew it wouldn’t take too long, which worked for both of us.
Ella took a little over a day to respond, as she was busy. But when she did it was a relief to see that she wondered if I was free on Wednesday still, which as I had planned Chloes in the morning it meant I was able to ask if the afternoon was okay with her. As I know Ella quite well, I knew she would be happy for me to let her know when I would come over rather than having a set distinct time the day before. Thankfully this was easy to plan meaning I knew what pre-production work I needed to get done today + Tuesday before filming on Wednesday.
Emily was very flexible with her days that she’s free, which was really useful for me as I knew the others may be tighter. From this I decided that Thursday is likely to be the better day for us to film, as I had already planned in Chloes and was awaiting a response from Ella. You can also see in the image to the right that I asked for a picture of their bedrooms because I needed to complete the risk assessments, it felt quite weird asking but all of them were happy with it, so it made my life very easy. Similarly to Chloe, Emily opted for 10ish to film which worked for me. This means I need to plan in travel time to get to hers and plan in for any issues that may occur while travelling.
Tuesday: 2/4/24
As I had now organized the interviews, it is essential that I complete all of the required pre-production work. So that is what Tuesday was dedicated too, as I had a whole day to work on it. There was one piece of paperwork which was more difficult to do which was the location release form, this is because I had to send them off and even though I know I will ask for them back asap, they won’t get back until a week later. But I know all three have already asked their parents if they are okay to have me filming in their houses and they have said yes, the location release form is just written consent I can see and show as proof.
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Once I had completed the pre-production work, I decided to wipe the SD cards and format them to make sure that I had enough storage for the interviews I am going to be filming. Along with this I checked that I had enough charge on the cameras and the microphone packs. Doing this just makes sure that for the next day of filming I have enough charge and that nothing will die when filming tomorrow.
Also, I sent over to all three the questions which I would be asking in the interview. Doing this just gives them a heads up and a chance to think through their answers as otherwise I would just be turning up and them having no idea of what is happening, so I would rather than have some sort of idea of what to say/do.
Wednesday: 3/4/24
Today I have two shoots to do, Chloes interview and Ellas’s interview. Chloes is in this morning and Ellas is in the afternoon, so once I was up, I got all the kit together and travelled to Chloes. When I arrived at Chloes I spent 15 minutes setting up the equipment, making sure that the lighting and camera placement was correct. While I was doing this, I gave Chloe the radio microphone and asked her to put it up her jumper and to clip it at the top, which I then went and adjusted to make sure there was no interference from her jumper and jewellery. The final setup can be seen below.
The image to the right is the settings I had for the shoot, however there is one big mistake on there which I didn’t even realise until after I had shot, and I was shocked at how I didn’t notice it. If you look in the middle of the screen at the bottom of the screen the exposure is set to -2/3 which I didn’t intend on at all. This means that the final shot is slightly too dark on the left of the frame, which I think can be fixed in post-production, but I’m not impressed that I did it in the first place. Other than that, the rest of the shoot went really well. I was able to get some second angle shots with a handheld camera as I didn’t want a set second angle because for my documentary, I felt it would be too formal whereas I want it to be more comfortable and relaxed.
When setting up the main shot, shown below, I was wanting the camera to be positioned so that it isn’t either look up at her or down on her as those both give off the wrong feeling and look, I was wanting to achieve. I was able to set it up so that she is centred, with equal space either side of her, allowing for the audience to see a little bit about who she is as a person rather than just having her defined by what I had filmed at the dance show. Due to the mistake with the exposure the left side of the frame is significantly darker than the right, I used a light to try and highlight her face more which has worked, but the left side of frame is still darker than I would like it to be. Then headspace of the shot is comfortable as Chloe moved around when she was talking so the headspace needed to not be too close but close enough so that it doesn’t look weird. As a whole I do like how this shot turned out compositionally and it gives off the feel that I want it to, it’s not set so it seems formal because she can be seen in it entirely and not just half her body and face, like a typical documentary interview would be.
Chloe's interview only took an hour to do, not the hour and a half I expected it to be, so once I was done, I double checked the footage and then packed up. As Chloe's was done in the morning, I had time to then download the footage from the SD cards onto my PC and then wipe them so that they had enough storage for the second interview which I was going to be doing with Ella in the afternoon.
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​Once I had wiped the SD cards and had some lunch, I headed on over to Ellas. When I arrived, I followed the same steps as I did for Chloe's, because now I knew how long it would take. The setup can be seen in the images below.
With the setup for Ella's interview, I decided to use her window as natural light and as the fill light for the it, as I only had one light to use. From this I placed the light to the right of her on a warmer setting to eliminate the shadows and create a softer feeling. To make it slightly darker I set the ISO to 640 as auto wasn’t working and kept on making it either too bright or too dark. Again, I have filmed it in 1/50 frame rate in case I was wanting to slow it down and it keeps it consistent throughout the shoot, so in post-production I can set up the timeline to that frame rate and not have to modify it. As I did with Chloe's, I have positioned Ella in the centre of the frame with some of her bedroom in the background, showing the audience a little bit about this person.
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Midway through filming I hadn’t put the headphones on for a while (other than checking at the start) when I noticed that the screen on the receiver wasn’t on, therefore meaning that sound hadn’t been recording. Essentially a very very big problem. Once I had noticed I immediately put the headphones on and realised that there was no sound recording, so turned it back on where the audio kicked in. Because of this I then went through the footage to see how many shots I had done without there being any audio and it turned out there were 3, 3 of which Ella had spoken a lot in but luckily as I noticed this, we were able to re-shoot them there and then. As I explained the issue to Ella she said if that when I got home and noticed any major issues, if she needed me to, we could reshoot it. Though that wasn’t my main worry, I was more worried that Chloe's interview wouldn’t have sound on some clips as I don’t remember if the receiver turned off or not. But this was an issue for future me. Back to talking about the shot.
The shot, shown above, is my favourite one I was able to get as it really captures the light and airy aesthetic/vibe that Ella gives off and the lighting looks natural it doesn’t look as though I have just chucked a light into it because I was told to. I have been able to carefully adjust the lighting to the correct settings to create the calm and light aesthetic, eliminating the shadows without it being too harsh. I feel I was successful in the placement of the lighting as in the shot, it looks natural it doesn’t look as though there is a standing light there which is what I was wanting to achieve. The camera placement was also done so that it wasn’t too low as I was struggling with getting it so that I got most of her in the frame without it looking down/up at her so where I was able to position the camera to attain the shot above worked in my favour. Also, it is worth me mentioning that with Ella and Chloe, I got them to look at the corner of the viewfinder/the flat area at the top as it meant they weren’t directly looking into the camera, as this would be intimidating for the audience, so through them looking at the corner it seems as though they are speaking to someone.
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After we had finished shooting, I packed up and headed on home to download the footage and prepare the SD cards for tomorrows shoot. While I was doing this I realised that one of the questions I asked Ella where the audio was non-existent we didn’t repeat as I thought we had it because when I went back to check which question we got to, it turned out that Ella had asked to re-do the question as she didn’t know what to say and when we re-shot it there was no audio. This is just very annoying as I know she said so much here which was so good and detailed, but for now I will see if Emily says similar stuff and can use that instead, if not then I will have to contact Ella to re-shoot her interview. The batteries still had enough charge on both cameras and the radio mics so I decided not to recharge them as I knew they would have enough for me to film tomorrow. Hopefully this issue won’t happen tomorrow as I will wear my headphones the whole time and keep an eye on the receiver between shots.
Thursday: 4/4/24
Thursday morning I ensured I had all of the necessary kit, packed my car and headed off to Emily's, aiming to get there for 10:00 – 10:15 (allowing the 15 minutes for traffic). As I didn’t really know how Emily’s room was set up, I was unsure on where I could sit her and have the camera/light so when I got there, I decided to do the same style setup, as I had Emily sit on her bed in a similar way to Chloe and Emily. Due to where her bed was placed and the height of it, I struggled to get the camera placement correct as I couldn’t put the tripod up too high because the lack of space. With this I then moved on the light and placed it to the right of the bed, as this is where the shadows were, and used the window to act as a fill light. This setup can be seen on the image to the right.
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As I did with Ellas, I adjusted the ISO to ensure that it let more light in as her room was quite dark, but I wanted it to have a lighter feel. Making this decision allowed me to have a lighter shot with a softer aesthetic, with the standing light aiding it to help achieve this.
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Once I had set up the camera, lighting and audio I then went through the questions with Emily and unlike Ella and Chloe, Emily actually spoke a lot about every question asked and gave great detail. This isn’t what I expected but it gives me a lot to cut to and will work very well as narration, also she got really into her emotions which was good to see. Specifically in the last few questions when talking about the last show, she started to sound as though she was going to cry as she spoke about it being her last show and the last dance, which I can use to end the documentary due to the emotional nature of it. As Emily spoke so much it did mean that the shoot lasted longer than I thought, but Emily was more than happy to continue speaking so Iet her, and neither of us were on a time limit.
​The image below is the main shot for Emily’s interview. While it is similar to the other two, I don’t like it as much I’m not sure what it is about it, but it just doesn’t have the same feel to me. However she is centred, there is natural light coming in from the left and limited shadows from the right due to the standing light. White balance was done but Emily still looks a little yellow which is annoying but an issue which can be fixed in post-production. Though technically I’m not as keen on the shot, it works for the documentary and will fill its purpose. If I re-shot it, I doubt I would be able to shoot something that I do like, it’s not bad there’s just something about this shot I don’t like and cannot pinpoint it.
I would say today when well as I got a lot of footage and clear audio which can work well as narration over the top of footage from the other shoots. Generally, I would say that the whole week/days of shooting went really well, apart from the microphone issue, and I have been able to complete my shooting for the documentary.