Transition Unit - Shoot Day!
The Bulk of The Shooting
Today was our key shoot day for our Facebook Data Protection mini-documentary. We had planned to meet our presenter Louis at Tunbridge Wells Station at 10:00am, so me and Alex were sure to arrive well beforehand. We met up at the same location around 9:20am and proceeded to check our equipment before heading over to the nearby 'Manna Café' location that I managed to secure filming access for. We wanted to recce the location as best we could before coming in later on that day with Louis for shooting. The owner immediately recognised me from our pictures via Email and Facebook (Ironic, I know), and proceeded to converse with us about not just the documentary, but also filmmaking as a whole. He seemed passionate about the craft and in retrospective, we lucked out to have such a welcoming, accommodating café to work with.
The owner of the cafe highlighted a key spot near the front window of the establishment, in which he noted that the natural lighting from the windows and the sofa's that were positioned there would work well for the scene. Having someone external to the project with an existing knowledge and interest in the project itself was invaluable during the production process.
Unfortunately Louis' original train was cancelled due to some unknown reason, so we were forced to wait in the station for him to catch the following train. While this meant we didn't start filming until ~1hr later than originally planned, it ended up not affecting our schedule that much as the Vox-popping sequence went much smoother than anticipated. I think that going into the production phase for the vox-popping, both me and Alex expressed some anxiety towards approaching people in the street and convincing them to contribute to the documentary. Fortunately though Louis was fast on his feet and incredibly effective at luring people in for a conversation! As Louis was picking people from the crowd to approach, myself and Alex were being aware of the variety of different perspectives we wanted to get on the issue. This meant that we were sure to speak to people of different generations, interests and occupations, and I do believe we were able to achieve a solid range of different perspectives on the issue, with some people having some genuinely interesting and thought-provoking words to say on the subject of data protection and privacy.
After having completed the vox-popping we proceeded to begin heading back to the café for our scheduled lunch around 12:30pm, but not before stopping in the main square area to shoot some establishing footage and time-lapse material for general B-roll. Alex as 'Director' had several shots and storyboards to follow throughout the day, therefore there were several points where we took a break from filming scripted material to shoot general B-roll for use during cutaways.
The PTC sections at the café ended up going really well overall, whilst the sun decided to go in for the majority of the afternoon, because of the amount of glass there was in the windows, there was a large amount of natural light coming from the right side of the shot, and made for some great looking imagery when it came to shooting our storyboards. There was a slight issue with Louis not knowing how to pronounce certain words within the script, and throughout the course of the PTC sequence it became clear to both myself and Alex that Louis probably hadn't been over the script as much as he should've. This was somewhat disappointing to see, considering one of the main things that enticed us into picking Louis as our presenter rather than Niv, was his range of theatre and television experience.
Regardless, the shoot day went incredibly successfully and we were able to shoot everything we planned to shoot without many issues. There was one moment where I was required to make a swift dash to a nearby hardware store, had to pick up some batteries for the dying radio microphones. That was fun. Other than that though, I believe we were both professional and efficient throughout the shooting process, and I think this will turn out to be one of the strongest pieces I and Alex have been able to put together. As for future filming, we're currently discussing filming an interview with fellow course member Katie Joslin next week, to give her thoughts on data privacy from the perspective of a moderately successful internet personality/YouTuber. The rest of the project however will come together in the edit room, with the introduction of voiceover narration from either myself or Louis (still undecided at this stage), but we currently aim to have recorded and on my PC for the edit by Thursday the 10th of May.
Today was our key shoot day for our Facebook Data Protection mini-documentary. We had planned to meet our presenter Louis at Tunbridge Wells Station at 10:00am, so me and Alex were sure to arrive well beforehand. We met up at the same location around 9:20am and proceeded to check our equipment before heading over to the nearby 'Manna Café' location that I managed to secure filming access for. We wanted to recce the location as best we could before coming in later on that day with Louis for shooting. The owner immediately recognised me from our pictures via Email and Facebook (Ironic, I know), and proceeded to converse with us about not just the documentary, but also filmmaking as a whole. He seemed passionate about the craft and in retrospective, we lucked out to have such a welcoming, accommodating café to work with.
The owner of the cafe highlighted a key spot near the front window of the establishment, in which he noted that the natural lighting from the windows and the sofa's that were positioned there would work well for the scene. Having someone external to the project with an existing knowledge and interest in the project itself was invaluable during the production process.
Unfortunately Louis' original train was cancelled due to some unknown reason, so we were forced to wait in the station for him to catch the following train. While this meant we didn't start filming until ~1hr later than originally planned, it ended up not affecting our schedule that much as the Vox-popping sequence went much smoother than anticipated. I think that going into the production phase for the vox-popping, both me and Alex expressed some anxiety towards approaching people in the street and convincing them to contribute to the documentary. Fortunately though Louis was fast on his feet and incredibly effective at luring people in for a conversation! As Louis was picking people from the crowd to approach, myself and Alex were being aware of the variety of different perspectives we wanted to get on the issue. This meant that we were sure to speak to people of different generations, interests and occupations, and I do believe we were able to achieve a solid range of different perspectives on the issue, with some people having some genuinely interesting and thought-provoking words to say on the subject of data protection and privacy.After having completed the vox-popping we proceeded to begin heading back to the café for our scheduled lunch around 12:30pm, but not before stopping in the main square area to shoot some establishing footage and time-lapse material for general B-roll. Alex as 'Director' had several shots and storyboards to follow throughout the day, therefore there were several points where we took a break from filming scripted material to shoot general B-roll for use during cutaways.
The PTC sections at the café ended up going really well overall, whilst the sun decided to go in for the majority of the afternoon, because of the amount of glass there was in the windows, there was a large amount of natural light coming from the right side of the shot, and made for some great looking imagery when it came to shooting our storyboards. There was a slight issue with Louis not knowing how to pronounce certain words within the script, and throughout the course of the PTC sequence it became clear to both myself and Alex that Louis probably hadn't been over the script as much as he should've. This was somewhat disappointing to see, considering one of the main things that enticed us into picking Louis as our presenter rather than Niv, was his range of theatre and television experience.
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