Thursday 22nd Feb | Shoot Day #4

Laura's schedule:

What happened on the day?

On this day we were shooting scene 11, 14 & 15, with the characters Annie & Dean.

• We started the day like we usually did, with setting up the cameras, lights & the zoom. We were filming in the kitchen at the start of the day, so we placed the cameras in the positions that were in the shoot pack, and we arranged the lights so they were in the right spots. Once the actors were ready to shoot, I brought them into the kitchen and blocked out the scene with them. It was pretty straight forward, so they understood pretty quickly how I wanted the scene to look like.
• Greg asked us how we would do the mixing of the ingredients due to continuity, and this is something that we hadn't really discussed before the beginning of this day. I made the decision to shoot the CU of the ingredients and the initial mixing of everything first, as it gave us clear shots of the beginning of the baking. Once I was happy with those shots, we moved onto the shots we had originally set up for - the WS and the MS of Dean baking the cookies.
• We did a few run-throughs (without Greg adding any more ingredients to the bowl) to make sure both Christine and Greg knew what they were doing and felt comfortable with it. Once they were happy, and I was happy with their performance, we started to do some takes. There were minor issues with head room in the WS, so we did this take a few times to make sure Drey was happy with her camera placement. Other than that, everything went well, and when I was happy with the coverage, we did a camera reset.
• At this point we only needed one camera - to get Annie's single - so we placed one of the cameras into another room that wasn't being used, and re-positioned the other for Annie's single.
• This shot only took a few takes, but one of the main concerns was not seeing Annie's face that much. I talked to Christine about facing Dean whilst she's talking, but not too much as I wanted to keep it looking quite natural. As I watched her performance during the takes, I liked what I saw and I thought it looked quite natural.
• Once I was happy with the coverage from this shot, we did a camera reset for a GV CU of the cookies on the baking tray. All the cookies were already on the baking tray, so we had Greg add one more scoop to the tray to make it effective. Once I was happy with this, we wrapped scene 11.
• We then started to set up for scene 14, which is set outside of the house. We had a few props that needed to be placed outside, so whilst the set was being dressed, the camera and sound were being set up and placed in the positions we had previously blocked. The camera shooting the WS had to be adjusted due to seeing the camera in the reflection of the window.
• While this was happening, I blocked the scene with the actors which wasn't too complicated. The scene is quite short so it didn't take too many run-throughs for the actors to get used to what they were doing. 
• Once all the props were in the right place, and everyone was happy, we started to shoot the scene. We didn't need to do too many takes of this as it was quite straightforward, so after shooting the WS & MS, we did a GV CU of Arnold in the greenery, so we could have more coverage to work with in the edit. After I was happy with the coverage we stopped for lunch.
• As usual, Nisserin imported the footage and we had a brief look to see if everything looked good and sounded good.
• AFTER LUNCH
• We started to set up for scene 15. The set was already dressed from the other day, so we set up the cameras and lighting straight away, whilst the actors were getting dressed. For this scene we were putting our Multicam set up in to practise by having three cameras on set at the same time. One camera was on a WS, another was a single of Dean, and the last one was a single of Annie. This scene was quite complicated in terms of action and dialogue, so I wanted to make sure both Greg and Christine knew what they were doing and felt confident about it. They did a few run-throughs while the cameras were being framed, in order for them to get used to the scene.
• At this point, the producer came into the room and mentioned how much time we had left to shoot that scene. She also asked me what we were doing and suggested that we were wasting time if we weren't doing anything. I informed her that we were doing run-throughs to make sure the actors were happy, and that we weren't wasting time as I  felt this was an important factor in the actors performance.
• Minutes after, the actors were ready and we started shooting the scene. We did a few takes of this scene so the cameras could get used to the action of the actors, but there weren't any problems with the multi-cam set up. After I was happy with the coverage and everyone else thought what we had was good, we did a camera reset.
• This camera reset was for the shot of seeing Annie & Dean coming into the house and taking their coats & shoes off. But this shot caused quite a few problems.
• The plan was to put the camera in the corner of the room, and see the action unfold before they go to the stairs. However, when Nisserin put the camera in the corner a problem occurred where we couldn't zoom out far enough to actually see any action. All members of the crew got together and stopped to discuss how we were going to get over this hurdle. We experimented with the positioning of the camera - placing it in the study door way (which didn't help) and placing it in the shoe cupboard (which also didn't really help).
• Eventually we came up with the solution of placing the camera in the opposite corner of the room, and panning across, following the actions of the characters. We tried it a few times to make sure it would work and it look like a good shot, and I was happy with the outcome. 
• We then started shooting this shot and got as much coverage as we could, in the time frame we had, so we had enough to work with in the edit.
• Once I was happy with the coverage, and the amount of shots we got, we wrapped for the day.

Notes:

I felt like this shoot day was a lot more hectic and full on than the others, possibly due to the two big scenes we were due to shoot. We weren't as time efficient today, meaning we didn't wrap as early as we have in the previous days, but we still finish on time. There were a few things that happened that I thought could've been avoided like unnecessary comments and people not communicating in an effective way. However, I don't think this affected the actors performance and the way we worked together as a group too much. Also, throughout the last scene, the producer was very efficient in telling us how much time we were over or how much time we had left for that scene. This was useful sometimes, but at other points where it was stressful and we were trying to figure something out, it was unnecessary and caused more stress than needed. We still managed to finish on time, even though we may have been running over a few times, and we got all of the shots we had planned. Overall, I think this shoot day was quite stressful and busy, but we all managed to work well and had good communication when figuring out a problem.