Project Evaluation

Upon reviewing the scripts by each member of our group, logistically we decided Stella's 'Greed' was the most practical one to film, due to the setting and content of the script. The script is based on a conversation between 2 family members discussing their fathers will, as it is set in a kitchen, this was the easiest script to shoot. Additionally, as we were only shooting a 2 minute segment of the script, it was the easiest script to shoot without needing context, where as with my script it would have been a lot more complicated to set the scene and explain the content within this 2 minutes. 

For the location we decided to film in the kitchen of Stella's house as this is in Maidstone and not far from the studios, it was the most convenient place for us to all meet on short notice/minimal production budget. As Stella was the script writer we agreed she should be producer and therefore she completed the risk assessment - this was also handy as she is more familiar with the location we were filming in and could determine the risks quicker and easier than any of the other production team. We were lucky enough to acquire actors for our production (friends of Stella's) this made it easier for us as a team to focus on all production aspects on the filming day. 

The day of the shoot Travis and I collected the equiptment which consisted of:

• Panasonic DVX200
• TASCAM DR-70D
• Rode Mic (inc dead cat) 
• Boom Pole
• LED lights with stand 

We faced a few issues when it came to starting production. Firstly, we found that the location was smaller than it appeared in photos, and once the production team, actors and equitpment were there it was a very small space to work with, this proved difficult to choose shots - additionally, the kitchen itself had a lot of windows and as we were filming midday the sun kept going in and out of the clouds, so we had to try and film where there was no reflections which proved quite difficult. Another issue we faced with this was when it reached about 1pm and the sun was starting to set, the light was hitting one of the actors faces through the window - to resolve this issue we used a coat held up against the window to block the light. Although this method worked, in future we know to bring the polyesterene blocks or other lighting equipment to resolve this issue. 

In terms of technical issues the only one we faced was sound. Upon setting the camera up I realised I couldn't remember how to check the camera sound was on; upon filming a test clip we found It was not on so we called Ferg to get this set up and sorted, again - in hindsight, before leaving the studios to film I should have checked how to do this with Ferg before taking the equipment. The second technical issue with sound we faced, was in post production we found that the audio from the phone call was not the best, this phone call conversation was also quite wordy and just didn't translate as well from script to film. 

Overall though the production ran very smoothly and we all worked well as a group from start to finish, and despite the minor hiccups along the way we were all really proud of the final outcome of our project.