Shoot 1: Homeless Man/Support Worker Interview

Shoot 1: Homeless Man/Support Worker Interview

Saturday 17^th March 2012

9.30am- 12.30pm

Cast: Mike Evans (Homeless Man) & Lewis Marks (Support Worker)

Crew: Myself

Equipment: HMC camera, Panasonic HDC SD900 camera, 2 x shot gun mics, 2 x tripods, Red Head Lighting kit.

Location: PH86, St Matthias Campus, Fishponds, Bristol

What we did:

The first shoot this weekend was the main interview between the homeless man and the support worker. This was filmed in one location, with both actors sat at a small table for the duration of the scene. I wanted to experiment with different camera angles, high and low angles to show power switches between the characters, shots with both actors talking directly to the camera to put the audience in the position of each character, close ups of each characters’ eyes and mouth and establishing shots based on the interview sequence in Hunger. I also wanted to film each actor reading each set of lines; so once with the homeless man answering the interview questions as you would expect a homeless man to, and once where he’s asking the questions, something you wouldn’t expect him to do – and the same with the support worker.

 What went well?

I knew I wasn’t going to have a crew with me to help with this shoot so I tried to plan everything as best as possible, I also was very aware that Mike had to be finished and dropped off as close to 1pm as possible. I spoke with the campus CSOs and the technical instructors and was able to set the equipment up in PH86 on Friday afternoon and leave it locked in there overnight. This was really good as it meant on Saturday morning I didn’t have to spend a further 20 minutes getting everything in the correct position.

Having previously held a run through in PH86, once with Fin practicing with the equipment, and once with Mike and Lewis, I already had a clear idea of the shots I wanted to achieve. This again meant that I could quickly set up each shot without having to worry about what was and wasn’t going to work.

My actors were both really prepared for the day following briefing earlier in the week and I ensured that we all took regular breaks to get out of the room which quickly became stuffy due to the small size and the hot lights. This gave my actors time to relax and gave myself a few minutes to collect my thoughts and mentally assess the footage I’d captured, and what I had left to capture.

What didn’t go well?

Not having a production crew made things a little harder, especially since I was filming on two cameras simultaneously. This meant that I had to set one camera up and rolling then run over to the other one and set that one up before calling ‘action’. It also meant I couldn’t monitor the sound or what the each camera was capturing constantly. However, having already held the practice shoot meant I was confident in what each shot looked like. Sound did prove problematic and I have ended up with the footage from the HMC camera being recorded in mono rather than stereo which is annoying but is something I know can be fixed in postproduction.