At this weekend, Mona did some shooting exercise. I and Lisa went to support her. During the shooting process, we kept running into problems. Based on these problems, I will learn from them and be prepared for my shooting exercise next week.

‘GET INTO POSITIONS’

During Mona’s shooting, Mona, Lisa and me all did camera operating, also I was in charge of audio and camera assistant. Also one of mona’s friends was the pom holder. The problem here is there are too many people around and everyone didn’t actually clear about what they should do, what’s their positions, there is no clear divisions for everyone. Even though we got through the entire process, but it was frustrating and took a really long time to finish.

What I will do: I will need two actors, my friends Phoebe and Tan, a dop/director, myself, a sound person, Mona/Lisa, a camera assistant, Mona/Lisa, a director assistant, one of my friends, haven’t decided yet. I will talk to they all, and tell them what exactly what they need to be in charge of. Also I will send them the script, story board, shot list in advance. In this way it will be easier for us to communicate with each other and be more effective.

‘PRE-PRODUCTION IS IMPORTANT’

During Mona’s shooting, she struggled with different shot size, angles, framing. Also we ran into some practical problems like the male actor is very tall, it is hard for mona to get a shot over his shoulder. We tried to let the actor hunch a bit, but it came out to be strange. So finally we found a small chair to stand on it to get the shoot. This kind of stuff should be considered in advance. Then prepare for it. What Mona did good is the lighting. She was aware of the lights in her building, might be dark for the shooting, so she borrowed a light from Uni in advance. And the lights turned out to be great by using extra lights.

What I will do: I showed my shooting list to Paul the other day, he said one manner I think it’s great for pre-production, for example, WS of Prospero moping the floor, write this shot on a small piece of paper, then just like a brain storm, think everything related to this shoot you might consider like different shooting angles, framings, camera movement, what stage property might be used, what accident might happen, etc. I have to think about everything might happen in this shoot, and write them down. When shooting, all I need to do is check the list.

one spark I catch

To make it editing look more continuous and smooth, always shoot more clips. If they are not actually used is ok.