In filmmaking and video production, the term ‘coverage’ means to capture footage, and hopefully enough, or the right footage, that it has the potential to be creatively used by the editor in the production process. The more footage there is, the more potential there is for a multi-faceted, visually captivating piece of work.

Today, we tested our basic knowledge of coverage so far, in two groups of around 6, taking on a hands-on practical task involving interpretation and shooting of a script. In a collective decision of the group, I was appointed cameraperson and took on the job happily. I was very keen to learn more about this beastly camera we’re working with. We decided that, because the task we were taking on was not of a monumental scale, we would have appointed jobs, but still help each other in the process of decision making within the responsibilities of each title.

We had two actors, Serena and Vera; a director, Justin; a first assistant director (1st AD), Siobhan; a sound person (possessing the boom microphone and headphones), Emma; a continuity advisor, Kate; and a cameraperson, myself.

We all worked together to decide what would happen, with each person having a little of the control over what was shot, if they voiced their opinion to us. I was given direction mainly, by Justin. We shot our ‘train carriage scene’ outside on some large steps. We used a beam of light to signify the window which one of our characters put her head out of, managing to get something in her eye in the process. We made do with what we had. We started with a wide shot of the two characters sitting side by side which included the action of Serena’s character looking out of the window, getting something in her eye, trying to remove it and Vera’s character asking whether she needed help. This shot covers most of the action in the scene, so if worse came to worse, we would have had the bulk of our action. The second most important shot was taken next; a side view of Serena’s head out of the ‘imagined window’ getting something in her eye, the same action played out as the initial shot, and this time, Vera also took the material out of Serena’s eye at the end of the take. These two shots, capturing all of the action, if problems occurred, would suffice in editing a readable scene together. Ideally, we would have played out the entire scene in the wide / mid shot of the two. To create a more dynamic selection for the editing process, we followed with capturing a shot where Vera speaks, that has the camera focusing more on her as she is facing the camera. We then captured a close up of Serena attempting to get the material out of her eye. Finally, we shot a wide shot, much the same as the initial shot, of the two looking awkward after the eye-incident. Admittedly, this should have been captured at the same time as the first scene, as I stated before.

A few problems arose during the entire production process. During filming, the memory card we used, I realised I had not reformatted and it was almost full after only a couple of takes. This was a minor issue and was resolved quickly by grabbing a new memory card. Our ‘imagined window’ because it was created by natural light of the sun, fluctuated in brightness and moved quite quickly, so the continuity of where our characters were positioned does not quite match up. However, this task was set to help us see and solve issues such as this. When we went to the editing suites at the end of this class, we loaded all of our footage to the servers and realised one of our shots captures our crew in the reflection of a window in the foreground. An issue we will all watch out for next time!