Test Shoot #2 | Development

We recently went to Laura's house again to do another Test Shoot. We took two Panasonic cameras to test out the Multicam set up, and we bought some sound equipment to test how we are going to record the sound on the shoot.
Our goal that we managed to fulfil on this test shoot, was to film at least one scene to test the Multicam set up, and take pictures for the storyboard that has now been created.

I asked Nisserin what scene she wanted to test out, because she needed to test out the camera shot sizes and how it would work in terms of the camera set up. She said that she wanted to test out the dining room scene. This is because out of all of the rooms, this one is a little more restricted in terms of camera set up and action due to the shape of it.
We started by setting up both cameras and the tascam, and placing all of the equipment in the dining room. Once the cameras were in the same settings and looked the same, we started shooting the scene. There was a mic on one of the cameras and the tascam was set up on another camera and placed on the table out of sight.
I recited the lines of Dean, and Laura recited the lines of Annie. Here are some screenshots:

MCU of Annie                                                MCU of Dean 

WS

One thing we found after the first take was the tascam wasn't working. So instead we decided to stick to the sound from the camera, but before our actual shoot we will need to work on this more to make sure it does work. Maybe, also, the sound operator we get needs to be experience with the tascam so we're not worrying about it during the shoot.
One of the problems we came across in terms of set is the mirror in the middle of where the actors will be standing. Nisserin found that if she lowered the camera slightly on the tripod, then you couldn't see the camera, which is good because that camera would be on a wide and there wouldn't be anyone constantly manning it. However, the actors are probably going to be taller than myself and Laura, so we may need to get rid of the mirror all together in order for this scene to work effectively.
We ran through this scene a few times, to get the actions right and the actor & camera placements the way we wanted them.

Once this scene was shot, we moved on to take pictures of the storyboard (see storyboard & shot list blog post for pictures).

Upon editing the footage, myself and Nisserin sat down and tested out the way we would edit the real thing in the new year. I sat with the storyboard in front of me, and she did the majority of the editing, on Final Cut Pro. She had previously edited on Premiere Pro and the footage was quite laggy, so we tried on Final Cut Pro instead. We are still deliberating what software to use when editing, but this was a good test for us.
We found that editing the footage on Final Cut Pro wasn't laggy which is good, but once we have exported the footage there was a big lag. This is all due to the large size of the footage, which means Nisserin will have to change the setting we will be shooting in, because we can't have the final episode lagging all the way through.

By having this test shoot, it gave all of us another chance to think about how the shoot days would work. In terms of actor blocking for me, it gave me the chance to look through every scene and decide where the actors would be standing. This was then good for Nisserin as she could work with that in making sure the cameras were placed in suitable positions.