Group Filming Day One- Evaluation

On Sunday 15th November 2009 we began filming the opening of an episode which we plan to upload on the website. We believe this will benefit us, drawing in potential audiences. We arrived around 11:30 am and started sorting out how we would position the room. We discussed the part of storyline we would be focusing on and decided what type of shots we would use and how we wanted the scene to end up looking, we moved unnecessary objects out the way, such as dog treats and keys, and took pictures of our set in order to ensure everything stayed in the same place if we decided to film again.

After ensuring the set was the way we planned we set up the camera and microphone. We decided not to use the camera given to us by our school, but used a professional camera which we thankfully had access too. However, when we lined up the shot we came across a few problems such as the positioning of the camera against a window left over exposure behind the actress and darkness in front leaving the shot unclear and unprofessional. We experimented on different ways of eliminating the problems, for example we attempted on blocking out the back light using black card and reflecting light onto the actress from the front using white card. These attempts were successful, however later we came to the decision on moving the actress further up the kitchen because it would look better when the other actress came through the door, giving us an overall better reaction shot and close up shots.

We all took turns with the filming and holding the microphone, listening through the headphones to make sure the sound was how we wanted it.

We started filming the main character 'Andrea' (played by Thegla) having her breakfast in the kitchen when she gets a text saying 'Are you in school today?', her mum then walks past and tells her to hurry up otherwise she is going to be late.

We used a variety of shots, including close-up shots, over the shoulder shots, panning shots, wide shots, reaction shots and a shot which included Thegla in the foreground and her 'mum' in the background and each one going into focus as they speak/react to the other one. We filmed a variety of these shots so that when we move onto the editing stage we will have enough shots to create what we want.

After completing what we could for the episode we moved into the living room, and began organising the room to make it look like an interview room. We chose the interviewer and the interviewees and arranged what questions will be asked, how they would be answered, and how many different shots were needed. However, due to background noise we decided to leave the equipment as it was and go take pictures for our magazine cover and return later when it was quieter. This is when we came up with the idea to challenge the ordinary TV magazine cover and go for one inspired by like 'Radio Times'. We walked down a quiet road near the house and stood together to take pictures. We discussed that in order to deceive the reader into thinking we were all a big group of friends in the soap we decided on three of us standing on one side of the picture and Thegla on the other to emphasize the division of the group. For these shots we all looked at the camera. Then we walked further down the road and the three girls stood in a group whilst Thegla sat on a bench away from the girls looking in their direction. This was to show how Thegla's character felt sectioned off and wanted to be a part of the group, from the body language given off by the group, Thegla's character wasn't accepted.

We returned to the house and began with filming the cast interviews. We decided to leave the camera on record to film us concurrently through out the question and answer session, we filmed different reaction shots, hand movements, body language and close ups after the questions had been answered. We also took photos of the interview. When we create the website for our soap, this part of our project will go under the "interview" tab with the video out takes as well.

Group Effort.