Documentary: Production Days

Shooting Day: 1,2,3

Overall I believe my group did a great job at capturing all the necessary footage. We have ourselves 3 days to fully complete the shooting. Josh is the Director and so he wanted an actuality style doc as it suited the topic better than a more structured,

The first shooting day consisted of Josh visiting the allotment and getting as much GVs and images of the allotment. We needed as much footage to be able to establish the setting and illustrate the allotments to its full potential. I believe we effectively did so. 

Shooting day 2 consisted of Josh and Saskia conducting interviews at the bottom plot allotment with Martina. They brought the prepared questions and got all the necessary information from Martina. 

Shooting day 3

This day was the most important day as as we needed interviews with Jamie as well as get footage of the veg being picked and packed. My role for that day was to get GVs and set up the go pro in necessary places. At first I struggled because I hadn't held a camera in a while and I felt somewhat rusty. I was also using a camera I hadn't used before for the GVs but after a bit of practice I felt like I got the hang of it a little bit. I still wasn't as confident as I should've been with my shots though. I still think that there were some shots I could've done better.

Filming

We used a PMW, Canon digital and go pro for filming. The go pro was used to film Sue who would be packing the veg bags. This would then be turned into a  short time lapse. The go pro was also burried into the ground where Jamie would have to pick it out, place it in his basket and walk away with it. Imitating the viewpoint of the vegetables. The go pro was then placed in one of Sue's baskets where she was meant to pick it up and put it in the veg bag. It was a little frustrating because I was trying to explain to her what I wanted her to do but she wasn't quite getting it and the go pro was running out of battery. In the end there wasn't really much useable shots of the go pro for Sue. So next time, I need to be able to give better direction and also bring more than one battery for the go pro.

Sound

Saskia was in sound and we used a boom for interviews. We had no issues with sound except on the camera I was using. Because I was using a different camera with a little external mic that was battery powered, I didn't want the battery to run out so I tried to have it off as much as I could. Only thing is I forgot to turn it back on for some of the shots and I only realised when the footage was being watched over by the group. This ruined some clips as there were nice shots that could've been used but it had no sound. 

Overall I am so proud of my group for not having any major technical difficulties. We were lucky that the weather was good as it really benefited our shoot but I still need to make sure I am more vigilant on shoots to avoid the no audio error, luckily because we had so many other shots, it didn't matter so much but this is something I must improve for the future.