Filming: Day 2

Getting sketchy!

Yesterday was my second (and hopefully last!) day of filming! It was all a little bit stressful as there was a very complex order in which I needed to film my shots, only having Ed for a certain amount of time. I completed the 'sketch shots', and everything supposedly set in the present day. I needed to make sure that I had shots of Ed, that intertwined with the sketch shots, meaning that I needed to film every-other-shot before Ed was unavailable. This meant that it was difficult 1) to remember what shots I needed and when (I threw my storyboard completely out of the window - explained later), and 2) to make sure I did not make any continuity errors. The latter meant that there was quite a lot of takes of each shot, all of which differed. I have looked back at all my shots, checking for continuity errors, but this was difficult as there was so many different takes and accidental shots! Soon, I will upload all my footage onto the Final Cut programme and delete all my unwanted shots. Then, it should make it easier for me to detect any errors, and my actors have agreed that they would be happy to re-do any shots if needed. Apart from all this(!), I think everything turned out okay, and I have successfully finished filming.

Rhys lightly tracing a screen shot

After filming the few shots of Ed (mainly entering the room, sitting at his chair and exiting again - with shots in-between of his reactions to the drawings/memories), I needed to sit down with Rhys (Ed's hand double and sketcher!), and work out how I was going to get the drawings exactly to scale with the moving image, so that they could be cut to smoothly. We decided that it would pretty much impossible for him to achieve this exactly to scale, so in the end Rhys lightly traced each picture on the computer, and then sketched over it with the camera rolling (and with the screen shot of the scene in sight). Although Rhys tried to sketch to scale, the likeliness is that it won't be. When it comes to editing, I will play around with transitions, and it may be that a cross-dissolve would be more suitable than a straight forward cut, which would make any movement caused by the sketches not being to scale more prominent and obvious to the audience. 

Failing to get the tripod to cooperate

Originally, I had also decided that the shots of the sketches being sketched would be ariel view shots, but when it came to filming, this became impractical. The tripod did allow the camera to tilt directly downwards, but no matter where I moved the tripod, it was either in the way of Rhys drawing, or caused a large shadow from the light. Instead, I decided to move the tripod at a bit more of an angle. As well as this, I was unable to get the camera to have a straight view of the paper (minus the desk and all the surroundings). I could not get the camera to face straight onto the paper without showing some of the desk, and zooming in meant the whole of the paper thus sketch could not be seen. Instead, I filmed Rhys drawing from a different angle, showing the desk and background, and then took still images of the sketches after they had been drawn which were able to be solely of the paper. This will then cut to the filmed image.

Rhys sketching whilst camera rolling

 Rhys also drew some of the sketches without the camera rolling, as after each filmed memory a sketch appears, as though he has drawn the entire scene. I was very pleased with the sketches - a 6B pencil was used, which was very thick, meaning that the sketches could be seen well through the camera. After editing, I am hoping the overall turn out will be positive! All my actors have been very cooperative and I would rate the overall filming experience as positive. I find it difficult to tell how good my footage is before I have edited, as after editing it will all flow better, and I will be able to see my film as a continuum rather than focussing on individual and separate shots.