Major Project - Preparation For License Day & Karting Sequence + South Downs Recce
The Plan For The Upcoming Weekend
While we were together at the studios today we were able to come up with a written plan for the events of this weekend, to go alongside the call sheets that George has already put together. We believe we have been able to appropriately asign enough time to each of our responsibilities during both the Racing License shoot tomorrow and the Karting Sequence/South Downs Recce on Sunday.
Knowing that there was going to be a lot of work involved this weekend, as well as an early start tomorrow we made the decision for me to stay over at George's house tonight, in order to ensure that I am as refreshed and prepared for my duties as Director of Photography in the morning as I should be. This will likely not be the only time this occurs during the production of this project, given that there are many more shoot days to come with several being consecutive - this is of course necessary given that I live further away from the university than both Alex and George, however we're working on adapting the schedule to the best of our ability in order to ensure both convenience and efficiency for all of our situations.
Part of my preparation for this weekend was producing the storyboards for the racing license sequence that will inform our shooting decisions tomorrow. These will be an integral aspect of my role as D.O.P. on 'DreamChaser' throughout this unit so you will have to forgive my questionable artistry. I opted for standard template with the location listed in the upper box accompanied with an 'INT/EXT' indicating whether or not the scene takes place internally or externally, below that we have the actual storyboarding frame which features my illustrations of what the shot should be looking like from the camera's perspective - finally at the bottom of each frame there is an informational box that provides details such as the shot type(s), a brief description of the scene and occasionally additional details regarding composition, lighting and/or notes from the director Alex. This will be the format I follow throughout the project and the storyboards can be reviewed in full in my previous blog post here.
One aspect of our documentary that will hopefully will raise the production value and overall coverage of the project will the in-car sequences captured using mounted miniature cameras on the interior of the vehicles Alex races in. During our team meeting this morning we developed a plan of the camera locations inside the car itself (pictured above), before testing it out inside George's car this afternoon. Respected camera manufacturing company, Olympus, was kind enough to send us one of their portable 4K cameras for usage during the project and we were surprised by the quality of both the picture and the audio. For this reason we decided that this would act as our main in-car camera and would be positioned slightly to the right of the driver's seat. Attached to the interior door wind-shield using a suction-cup mount.
There was also a camera mounted beneath the central dashboard mirror for a wide-angle view of the road ahead, accompanied by a separate camera on the rear window to capture cut-aways to the rear view of car during motion. By doing all of this we maximise our coverage during the racing sequences with a total of 7 active cameras during the periods where Alex is on track. The goal of doing this is to ultimately ensure we have all of the footage we need for George to be able to cut in and out of the vehicle during the entire racing license practical test, ensuring he has enough material to appropriately craft the sequence in the script.
The final part of the weekend on Sunday afternoon will consist of a scouting recce at the South Downs following the karting sequence in the late morning/early afternoon. By performing locations recces like this we will be able to ascertain important information in regards to shooting conditions, what sort of approach we should take with audio capture and whether or not it will even be viable with the wind gusts that will be prevalent that close to the coastline. Alternatively this entire sequence will have to be driven by in-studio narration which may detract from the authenticity of the sequence itself, however I do believe that we could intercut this with diary room segments in order to make it work. Time will tell.
Knowing that there was going to be a lot of work involved this weekend, as well as an early start tomorrow we made the decision for me to stay over at George's house tonight, in order to ensure that I am as refreshed and prepared for my duties as Director of Photography in the morning as I should be. This will likely not be the only time this occurs during the production of this project, given that there are many more shoot days to come with several being consecutive - this is of course necessary given that I live further away from the university than both Alex and George, however we're working on adapting the schedule to the best of our ability in order to ensure both convenience and efficiency for all of our situations.Part of my preparation for this weekend was producing the storyboards for the racing license sequence that will inform our shooting decisions tomorrow. These will be an integral aspect of my role as D.O.P. on 'DreamChaser' throughout this unit so you will have to forgive my questionable artistry. I opted for standard template with the location listed in the upper box accompanied with an 'INT/EXT' indicating whether or not the scene takes place internally or externally, below that we have the actual storyboarding frame which features my illustrations of what the shot should be looking like from the camera's perspective - finally at the bottom of each frame there is an informational box that provides details such as the shot type(s), a brief description of the scene and occasionally additional details regarding composition, lighting and/or notes from the director Alex. This will be the format I follow throughout the project and the storyboards can be reviewed in full in my previous blog post here.
There was also a camera mounted beneath the central dashboard mirror for a wide-angle view of the road ahead, accompanied by a separate camera on the rear window to capture cut-aways to the rear view of car during motion. By doing all of this we maximise our coverage during the racing sequences with a total of 7 active cameras during the periods where Alex is on track. The goal of doing this is to ultimately ensure we have all of the footage we need for George to be able to cut in and out of the vehicle during the entire racing license practical test, ensuring he has enough material to appropriately craft the sequence in the script.
The final part of the weekend on Sunday afternoon will consist of a scouting recce at the South Downs following the karting sequence in the late morning/early afternoon. By performing locations recces like this we will be able to ascertain important information in regards to shooting conditions, what sort of approach we should take with audio capture and whether or not it will even be viable with the wind gusts that will be prevalent that close to the coastline. Alternatively this entire sequence will have to be driven by in-studio narration which may detract from the authenticity of the sequence itself, however I do believe that we could intercut this with diary room segments in order to make it work. Time will tell.
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