Filming - Day 2

As we planned to have performance parts in our video we decided to book the schools drama studio - we booked it 3weeks in advance so we knew we would definitely be able to film. We thought the drama studio would work much more effectively with our backdrops and we also had the advantage of professional lighting.

Our time came to start using the studio, so we started to prepare it for when our cast got there - meaning we could start filming straight away. I, Louise and Bijal began to set up the studio, whilst Evie went to collect some costumes and extra cast. In total we had four flags, we decided to pin two up side by side so we could give them their own individual lighting - it just meant moving the camera along when we wanted to use the alternate flag. The best way to get the flags in place was to use large safety pins, this allowed us to put the flags where ever we liked and if we wanted them to be hanging tightly or loosely. The drama technician lit up the flags and also set up a spot light for where our cast would be standing. I then had to stand in where our cast would be so we could determine what we liked and didn’t like about the lighting. It took a little while to decide what we liked, however we was happy with the overall finish.
We thought it would be more useful if the music was at a louder volume so the cast and ourselves could hear it. As we only had the song on an iPod, the technician gave us a cable that connected to the main audio system - this helped us to play the music on whatever volume we wanted.

Evie eventually came back with the clothing and cast, so our main character and the rest of the cast could begin to get ready. Once our main character was ready, we started to set up our first few shots of him using the story boards as a guidance - this helped to save a lot of time as we knew exactly what we had to do. We all took turns to film as some of us were apart of the cast. We noticed one of our cast members were wearing American flag converses, we thought these looked really effective - although it wasn't originally in our plans, we decided to film a few extra shots of these which came out quite well.

The afternoon of filming was quite a success, as we manage to film nearly everything needed for those particular scenes. Once we finished filming everyone helped to clear up the studio and get changed. As Bijal was the only one not in costume she went straight to the media room to upload our footage - so we had no chance in loosing it, such as previous situations.

Once everyone was changed we all went to the media room to see what we had filmed and were quite impressed with the results. We had a good rang of shots which will become very helpful in the editing stage.