Filming (Day 2)

Today, we'd arranged to meet at 10:00 at Phoebe's house for filming primarily the couple scenes, background and abstract, filler shots and some performance shots. Kirsty was visiting LCF University today so she wouldn't be coming until later.

When I got to Phoebe's, she was finishing up putting on her outfit and we were ready to go. I took a range of panning shots of her bedroom; it has a very vintage, hipster feel to it with alcohol bottles, The Rumours record, Moulin Rouge poster and clothes lining the walls. There were a lot of old-fashioned items decorating the interior, such as her record player and the radio we borrowed from the Graveney drama department, which related the music video to the artist's persona and helped generate the setting of modern times with a vintage, 1940's twist. We also took some panning shots of Phoebe, close-ups of her looking out of the window and anything else we could think of. Mr Roberts made it a priority to reiterate "You need to get as much footage as possible."

Elliot arrived at around 11:30, and we got started on the couple shots. We got him changed into another shirt for the bed scene, similar to Theo's, and shot that. It took a little longer without the dual camera action, but it had a little less laughing so we were keeping to schedule.

We then went outside and filmed the couple on a date, hugging in the archway and the artist returning his coat. We hadn't previously planned to film the "Goodbye"-in-the-archway bit, but it was old-fashioned and so romantic, we just had to use it. We also filmed the shots of Elliot running. In hindsight we should have used a street featuring less objects of modernity in it however, we went ahead and filmed a series of close-ups on areas of the body and panning shots of him running down the street.

We had a little trouble with the cameras where Kirsty's camera ran out of battery early on in the morning. It was a shame because the camera was better quality and the footage was, therefore, a higher standard. Then the second camera ran out of battery, and as we were filming outside, we had to hurry our filming. It wasn't too bad as we got all that we needed but it just added an extra pressure to get things right the first time.

(Couple of cheeky selfies from the two Phoebes)

All in all, the day was a success, with us gathering enough footage so that we wouldn't need to catch up too much on the Friday. I left at around 2:00, and we'd finished by then so Kirsty didn't need to come. We checked details for Friday before packing everything up.

Filming

As we'd organised the timetable for filming for half term, we were all set to start filming. It was Friday, and usefully, we have Media Studies period 5 (Last period of the day). As a result, we could take the lesson off and, starting at the beginning of lunch, film for a whole two hours and get a head start of collecting all the footage together.

Phoebe only lived about 5 minutes away from school so after buying lunch, I nipped over to Phoebe's house with Kirsty to film the shots of her and Theo (New Lover), as Theo was only free that day! As a result, there was a pressure to focus and stick to the schedule, which I think we did, even if there was a little goofing around.

Once we'd arrived (I was about 20 minutes late because I'd needed to eat lunch and the queues for food were ridiculously long), Phoebe and Kirsty were in the bedroom, while Theo sat outside listening to his music. They were deciding on an outfit for Phoebe to wear in the shots, and we chose a nice pyjama set for the scene with them in the bed and a casual-esque jeans top for the rest. When that was sorted, I hopped out of the window onto the conservatory roof, to film the shots of Phoebe singing out of the window with Theo lying in bed next to her, sleeping. 

Unfortunately, it didn't film as well as I'd hoped and involved me having to shakily film Theo's face then swerve up to Phoebe at an angle, as you couldn't see Theo just pointing the camera at the window. I captured a range of shots of Phoebe singing/looking out of the window and gleaned some landscape, nature shots from my position on the roof e.g. I followed a line of ivy that scaled up one side of the house to use a possible filler shot.

Phoebe's Dad had painted the roof of the conservatory and so it was still drying when I was up there. It was a bit of a hassle trying to manoeuvre around the wet areas and I had to take my shoes off when I entered back through the window but we got the necessary footage and Theo helped carrying my shoes in.

Halfway through filming, my camera ran out of memory and so Kirsty gave me a one of her memory cards. 

With the two cameras we had to work with, Kirsty and I took different jobs. Kirsty filmed the reflection shot of Phoebe singing into the mirror as Theo walked in while I filmed pan shots of the bedroom. Things then got awkward when I had to shoot the bed sequence. Phoebe and Theo got in, after a quick costume change, and we started to film. It took a while to calm the giggles but we got a nice selection of shots from some good angles, with both me and Kirsty operating the cameras. I shot from a bird's-eye view standing on the bed while Kirsty knelt by the side of the bed.

Journeying to the downstairs kitchen, we filmed the scene of Theo and Phoebe drinking tea and looking out of the window, again with dual cameras filming. The shot of them looking out of the window was a little trouble to co-ordinate as in the footage the viewer could see my reflection while filming, and so I had to film from an angle. It wasn't quite how I wanted it to turn out but we had to make-do with what we had. A great thing about Phoebe's kitchen is that it has huge floor-to-ceiling windows which let in the natural light, ideal for a clean, bright and natural shot.

Doing the filming today meant that we got a head start on filming and could leave the equipment there for filming the next day. We also set-up some of the scenes a little and created the outfits Phoebe planned to wear so that we could start filming straight away, efficiently as I had an engagement which only gave us until 2:00 on Saturday to get everything done.

Filming on the Move

For some of the filler shots, I felt that rather than scrape anything we could at the locations we'd decided to shoot at, I would try to collect some on the way home. My iPhone4 camera is pretty good quality and this gave me the chance to find things that I liked rather than be restricted to whatever was available on film sets.

On two occasions I filmed footage. The first was walking up my hill, and when I looked up at the sky, it was late afternoon and cloudy. It was beautiful and with the camera shadowing the trees and houses, it was ideal for a filler shot.

The other time was again walking home, but up another route. There are a line of houses with roses in their front gardens and so, while walking up, I stopped every couple of times and filmed a few seconds of footage of a white rose or orange berries, or snowdrops blowing in the wind. Having these little extras just gave us a little more of a range when editing and deciding what to use for filler shots.