Our second format was shot this week, the stoner circle style shot from That 70’s Show.

We began this week with a consult and a group meeting, which led to lots and lots of ideas being thrown around for the circle shot. Athena was tasked with writing the actual script, but we all contributed to it in some way. The idea to pass around a box of shapes (classic munchies food), the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Kyles’, and the final scene in which we run around like morons all came from a brainstorming session on Monday. This sort of collaboration was fun, and led to a better finished product.

We discussed two main ways of shooting this scene; A) we could use a hand-held camera and a swivel chair, or B) we could put the camera on a tripod and swing it round. We also considered filming each bit of dialogue separately, editing them into a cohesive piece later. This idea was quickly ditched, mostly because none of us are strong editors and we felt it would be too time-consuming.

After trying the swivel chair technique, we decided it was too shaky and uneven, and worked with the tripod after that. We found the most difficult part of filming to be remembering whose line was next, and panning accordingly. Tahni, our camera operator, was holding both a boom mike and the camera, and couldn’t really hold a script as well. We ended up editing the script so that the lines were always delivered in a clockwise pattern around the circle, making it a lot easier for Tahni to keep up. It was then just a matter of rehearsing until we got it right.

Coming into this week, I had assumed that the acting would be easier, given the simple dialogue ad lack of movement. Looking back on the footage, I am still a terrible actor and it is even more obvious, since the all the shoots are mid-shots to close-ups.

A very flattering still of me from the stoner circle footage

One thing to note about shooting this scene, we changed pretty much none of the script. Athena wrote a great script that translated easily to filming. The lines were easy to memorise, and with no movement involved, it was simply a case of sitting and waiting for the camera to pan around to you again.

Looking back to the mockumentary shoot, it was definitely easier to shoot that than the stoner circle. We could improvise as we pleased, and Tahni was able to just keep shooting until we started breaking. However, both worked, both were fun, and both offered an insight into how the different formats work.