H.P. - Reflection on Shoot: Day 2 Action Line 1

Our second day of shooting was even more successful than the first. We didn't encounter any significant problems at any point which was fantastic given all the variables that could have gone wrong due to the scale of the performance and the number of actors, extras, musicians and crew involved.

• Similar to the first day of shooting, my role was again to operate the camera and direct the actors. This was harder than the first day in the sense that there were many more actors on location this time, however we did have the significant benefit of being able to shoot in pretty much any direction and angle due to the amount of space we had and the effect of the lights, fog and darkness outside our small set up area covering anything we didn't want in shot. On camera we could only see things we wanted to see, no matter which direction we pointed it in.

• A concern we had prior to filming was that not enough people would turn up to the shoot, however this worry was thankfully wrong as everyone who had agreed to come turned up. We had over 20 actors, extras and musicians to film which was incredibly beneficial to the scale and professional appearance of the footage.

• The lights effectively enclosed the filming area, making the space feel intimate yet large enough for a significant performance to take place. The floodlights were very effective at lighting the scene, with three being the perfect number to effectively light all the actors without any large shadows.

• One of the most fortunate surprises of the evening was the effectiveness of the fog that we used to fill the duller areas of the scene. It was very helpful as it caught the wind and provided a real sense of movement to the footage. Combined with the movement of the camera and the numerous actors and extras in the scene, the footage turned out to be incredibly dynamic.

• As mentioned at the start of this post, we didn't encounter many major issues during our filming on this day. However a few minor issues did present themselves.

• One issue was an accident in which the double bass owned my one of the musicians was dropped, catching the edge of the small platform we had created. The instrument fell to pieces, which while quite spectacular to witness, was not good at all for the musician or our schedule. We had a quiet discussion as a group as to how to proceed, as the musician obviously wanted to attempt to fix the instrument and our shots also required this to be done. We decided to give the musician and the people kindly helping him 20 minutes to do what they could, while we offered support and continued to plan our shots.

• Another issue we encountered was that I experienced a personal issue towards the end of filming which made me unable to continue with the role I had been given. I was forced to hand over the camera and responsibility to Kurtis and Freya, who did a fantastic job continuing shooting in the style that I had been employing. I instead took over the role of managing the music which had to be set to the right place before each shot, one of Kurtis' roles previously. 

• The footage turned out far better than anticipated, which is a significant statement given the scale of what we had planned.