Monday Filming: Pieces to Camera and Driving Shots

The filming on the 9th October, I thought, was mostly a success. A lot of the time was taken up filming Alex presenting piece-to-camera both inside and outside of his car which he was going to drive. More time was then used to acquire footage of Alex driving past in his car in various locations.

I was given the job of operating a camera on a fig-rig. This was so I could get some extra footage from different angles at the same time as the main camera to break up the sequence of shots. This was mostly used during the segments where Alex is presenting. However it did also serve the purpose of getting several shots of the car driving past as well as one particular shot which features the car pulling to a stop right in front of me and the camera (making sure that both the camera and I were still a safe distance from the car as it stopped).

We travelled to each road location in two cars. George and I scouted ahead in one car to allow us time to set up the cameras to get the right shots while Alex and Cailan followed at a distance behind, eventually driving past us when we gave them the go-ahead via communication by phone.

An unfortunate occurrence happened which set us back a little. Right behind where me and George were sitting in his car, two cars collided with each other and the people from both vehicles were both panicking over their children who were also in the cars. We stayed for roughly twenty minutes to see and make sure that everyone was alright and George gave some details as a witness to what happened. What struck me when this happened was that we were in exactly the same place the two collided literally only a minute before the incident, meaning it could have very easily have been us in the crash. We did move on, however, and managed to get the rest of the filming done for the day.

The only problem I had with this shoot was the fact that we kept retaking every shot when I personally felt we had already nailed the shot on the second or third try without have to retake the shot five more times, therefore making us lose time. However, I suppose it does ensure that we do get the absolute best shot that we can.