Shooting Journal

Test Shots:
We decided that in order to get a feel of how the camera worked, and to experiment with some of our ideas before we stared filming for our final product, we would try out some test shots.
These test shots included:
  • How to portray our post apocalyptic setting:
  • Times of the day and weather conditions
  • How our actor(s) worked on camera
  • Camera movements and shots/angles.
  • How to protray our dead bodies

This process helped, as we decided that we needed to use only static shots when we were representing the deserted fairground.

We started filming at 10:00, as the fair opened at 12 o'clock we had to be done filming at 11:40, so that the fair could be prepared to open, and to ensure we did not get anyone, be it customers or workers, in shot. This gave us just over an hour and a half to do our test shots. 

Day 1:
On our first day of "proper" filming, we took a variety of still shots of different parts of the fair, these included:

  • Close up of a Galloper horse.
  • A shot of the coconuts with varying depths of field.
  • Close ups of the swings on the chair-o-planes
  • A panning shot of the fair (which we later decided not to use, as it gave the impression that there was movement, and thus living people in the fair)


Day 2:
This was a very productive day, as we got a lot of filming done. We started filming at 8:30 in the morning, and continued filming until 10:30, as the fair opened at 11:00.  Today we filmed:
  • We did a few test shots of how the dead bodies should look, which went well, as we could work out how they should be positioned, how the blood should be on the bodies etc.
  • We got a variety of different establishing shots. We also were able to capture a few practise shots with the actors, and tested how they should act/move/look etc.
Day 3:
This day was again, very productive.
  • We filmed more establishing shots, to give us more variety to use in editing.
  • We filmed the shots of the dead bodies in a variety of different locations on the fair.
  • Close ups of the phones and blood coming out of the ears.
Day 3:
On this day the rest of the group were not able to make it to the fair to film, so
  • The reshoot of the protagonist getting out of the car/driving, as the set up of the fair was different to how it was the first time we filmed him, and so would have to reshoot to keep up to continuity(weather conditions, lighting etc.)
  • Tracking shots of the protagonist
  • The variety of shots of the car.
Day 4:
We filmed the shots of before the apocalypse, when the people are on their phones. We filmed:

  • several different shots of a teenage girl using her mobile
  • several shots of a man in a shirt using his mobile
  • and several shots of another man using his mobile phone.
This days filming went very successfully, as we got a variety of different shots that we could use for the representation of our technology aspect, and also the social representation, as we are representing a variety of different social classes here.

Overall our filming process was very successful as, not only did we get all the footage we needed on time, but it was also a  huge learning process that really helped me to understand more about the production of films, and how important pre-production work is.

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