In week 9 I met up with the sound recorder, the first AD and one of the writer/directors to talk about Touch On/Touch Off (mainly about the sound). We decided to go to Princes Park (pictured below), because we are shooting a couple of our scenes there and we wanted to check out the location, the atmos noise and the lighting. We will be shooting this scene in the morning, so it was a bit of a shame we visited it in the afternoon, as the lighting conditions will be different on the day. Nevertheless, we can just reverse everything we practiced to suit the morning light. We scouted out a nice grassy area next to a tree where we are planning to shoot one of the scenes. We will most likely be shooting with the sun as a back light and thus we will also need to use a battery powered LED panel to ‘fill’ the actor’s face.

For another scene, we are planning to shoot by the man-made pond in Princes Park. While visiting the location we noticed a couple of things which could interfere with our shoot. Firstly, there were quite a lot of people sitting around the pond and secondly, it was a very noisy area. The pond is situated close to a tram line and a busy road, plus the fountain in the pond is extremely loud. Therefore, we are considering either doing ADR, wild lines (which for some reason the sound guy is against), or finding another location for the scene. All in all, it was good to explore the location prior to shooting there so we were aware of potential problems that could arise.

This week I also finished all of the storyboards I needed for our first shoot date on 14 May:

In class I was also lucky enough to do a lighting test for scene 11 of the film, with help from my peers. I was directing, as well as shooting on my DSLR camera. Amy was first AD, Annick was on camera 2 (using one the Ex3s?), Helena was on audio, Tim was noting down the different lighting setups and exposures, and the rest of the class was helping gaff. It was a rather uncomfortable experience for me, because I generally don’t like directing (particularly when a large crew is involved and I’m on camera; I don’t react well to the pressure). With the added stress of lighting, which I feel totally unfamiliar with, it was a rather daunting process. The thought of having to direct lighting as a DOP for the short film is still freaking me out a bit. However, after watching the footage back, I feel much more at ease. It turned out better than I expected, and the practice definitely helped me get a feel for the different lighting setups that are possible for the cafe scenes in the film. We played around with using a 2000 Ari red head (diffused), LED panels and Dedos. My favourite take (on both cameras) is take 8, using a diffused ‘2000’ positioned right of camera. I like it because Bliss’ offside is illuminated, there are no harsh shadows and the outside is exposed correctly, as well as both of the actors. The only problem is that when Alex stands up in this shot, he shadows Bliss, which makes it very obvious that there is an artificial light coming from camera right. However, I think you could cut and change camera angles before Alex stands up and still make the scene appear ‘naturally lit’. Thus, I will be aiming to replicate this camera setup for the real shoot next weekend.