To keep track of continuity i took pictures of the set, to know where to put the chairs and props and ensuring smooth continuity, also taking pictures of the cast after they had there make-up done so that Amelia knew how to replicate the same look on different days.
All cast and crew had the stripboard for the day emailed to them, informing them of what we were filming and when to be there. This was more enforced from the second day as I learnt from the first shooting day that having a professional schedule can improve the quality and efficiency of your production.
Today we filmed the rest of scene 2 and got a few shots into scene 3, there weren't as many people as the first day on set so it was easier to manage as there were less to worry about but it meant that some people had to do an extra job.
We first placed the shotgun mic onto the camera but we had no luck as the quality of the sound was not up to the standard I wanted so i told Amelia to hold the mic attached to the pole, and Luke to help her when he was not in shot. The first thing I did to also improve on the sound quality was to ensure that the mic was being held and pointed towards the source of sound properly, but it was still taking in too much background noise so I assessed the piece of equipment and noticed settings on the side. I changed from Db +10 to 0. And this improved the capturing of dialogue as there wasn't any background noise such as cars passing the location being heard.
I printed off the storyboard and had my own copy of the script so I could keep track of the progress throughout the day. All of scene 2 is a dialogue so we knew that there would be a lot of shot-reverse shot sequences taking place. But we needed this to be fully professional looking so in order to achieve this i placed the camera further away from the actors then zoomed in on them, changing the depth of field to fit the actor and then widening the lens by altering the aperture to be narrow (f.22) and this resulted in the background having a little blurriness to it and emphasising the importance of the shot, the actor.
which resulted in shots like this.
What also helped achieve this dark and unsettling tone to this shot was the altering of the ISO which was placed at 1600 for this shot.
We experimented by changing it throughout and found that this one worked best but it had to be changed for the next shot as there are different environmental factors to take in such as lighting and space for the equipment.
The biggest challenge we faced today, in my opinion, was the entrance of the character Anthony, one big reason was the fact that I could not help behind the camera as i was in the shot and also because there was an issue with operating the equipment. The original shot we had in mind to track behind Anthony but we tried to that but it ended up being too choppy when the camera was handheld and even when we attached a weight to the tripod to help stabilise the movement it still didn't look as smooth as I wanted. So what i did was set up the stabilizer with two tripods at each end to keep the movement smooth and level, this resulted in a shot that was perfect and fit the tone of the film and also reflected the personal ideologies of the character Anthony who is calm and collected.
