Dungeness- The Phone Box
On 13th November we went to Dungeness to create a short location film. The script for our project is below. It was a fantastic opportunity to use the cameras in an extremely open outside location. We were given the brief to create a two minute film around the theme of change. We had a day to come up with the idea and then write a three page script, we the shot the film in a day at Dungeness, and then edited it in a day, so it was a very quick turn around and opportunity to work under pressure.
Challenges that I faced:
During pre- production:
During pre production one of the biggest challenges was definitely coming up with the idea on the spot. We had a few loose ideas but as we had to finalise them straight away it was hard to link them together, so we focussed on getting our characters then created the story around them. Another struggle with pre production was that we had never been to the location before so we had to rely on images from google maps to decide where we would film scenes of our film, however in future projects we would perform a recce beforehand.
During production:
We had a few issues during production, the first was that a local resident was questioning us for why we were filming and we explained that it was for a Uni project but she still did not seem satisfied. We were not filming n her land it was just by the road near her house, we then explained to her that we would not get her house in any footage, this made her happy and we were then able to continue filming. Even though it was a little scary as it was the first time I had ever come across anything like this, it was good experience as I will probably have many more scenarios similar to this in future and as long as they are handled with respect like this was then there should never be any problems.
Anther problem that we faced was the mic falling off the camera, Ferg said that this was down to 'wear and tear' however it did mean that during production we had to hold the camera and the mic separately and this was very tricky when we had two people in shot and only one on the camera. Another challenge was dealing with the weather and light, this was the first proper outside location shoot we had done all day so dealing with the temperature getting colder and the light changing as the day went on were things that we did not really factor in. However in the future I now know to always check the weather before a shoot and to film the same scenes at the same time of day so there is no drastic change in light.
During editing:
During the edit I realised that we had got too much coverage at the start of the day and then not enough by the end, this was because we were cold and we were getting frustrated with the light changing so we wanted to film the second half quickly. This meant that when editing it together I had to cut some shots out for the first half and then try and make them match up for the second half. Nothing else could be done as we couldn't change our footage but I now know that it is very important to get the same level of coverage for the whole film not just some parts of it.
Something that I learnt during the edit was that for the first twenty seconds or so of our film we had not recorded any audio as we forgot to plug the gun mic in due to there being no dialogue. Therefore during the edit I had to add diegetic sound for every action from dialling numbers into the phone box to the door shutting This was annoying to start with however I then realised that it was harder than I anticipated to match up sound effects with action so it was good practice for if I ever have to do that again in future projects.
What did I learn from this process:
From this process I learned that it is very important to check that the audio is always recording and also to record a buzz track so that if there is a moment where I have no audio recordings then it fills in the background with some ambient sound as well as creating an atmosphere for the location. I would also want to make a more detailed shot list as we only did a rough story board, at the time we thought it would be kay and enough to follow however when we started filming we realised we had no where near enough detail planned of what to film so we had to partly make it up as we went along which did make the production feel quite messy and I would not want to have that again. Finally I learned that it's so important to get the right amount of footage, too much can make it seem over edited and too technical which distracts the viewer from the story and too little can appear unprofessional. I really enjoyed this location project and learned a lot which I will take which me into my Script to Screen shoot.
Script for THE PHONE BOX:
Challenges that I faced:
During pre- production:
During pre production one of the biggest challenges was definitely coming up with the idea on the spot. We had a few loose ideas but as we had to finalise them straight away it was hard to link them together, so we focussed on getting our characters then created the story around them. Another struggle with pre production was that we had never been to the location before so we had to rely on images from google maps to decide where we would film scenes of our film, however in future projects we would perform a recce beforehand.
During production:
We had a few issues during production, the first was that a local resident was questioning us for why we were filming and we explained that it was for a Uni project but she still did not seem satisfied. We were not filming n her land it was just by the road near her house, we then explained to her that we would not get her house in any footage, this made her happy and we were then able to continue filming. Even though it was a little scary as it was the first time I had ever come across anything like this, it was good experience as I will probably have many more scenarios similar to this in future and as long as they are handled with respect like this was then there should never be any problems.
Anther problem that we faced was the mic falling off the camera, Ferg said that this was down to 'wear and tear' however it did mean that during production we had to hold the camera and the mic separately and this was very tricky when we had two people in shot and only one on the camera. Another challenge was dealing with the weather and light, this was the first proper outside location shoot we had done all day so dealing with the temperature getting colder and the light changing as the day went on were things that we did not really factor in. However in the future I now know to always check the weather before a shoot and to film the same scenes at the same time of day so there is no drastic change in light.
During editing:
During the edit I realised that we had got too much coverage at the start of the day and then not enough by the end, this was because we were cold and we were getting frustrated with the light changing so we wanted to film the second half quickly. This meant that when editing it together I had to cut some shots out for the first half and then try and make them match up for the second half. Nothing else could be done as we couldn't change our footage but I now know that it is very important to get the same level of coverage for the whole film not just some parts of it.
Something that I learnt during the edit was that for the first twenty seconds or so of our film we had not recorded any audio as we forgot to plug the gun mic in due to there being no dialogue. Therefore during the edit I had to add diegetic sound for every action from dialling numbers into the phone box to the door shutting This was annoying to start with however I then realised that it was harder than I anticipated to match up sound effects with action so it was good practice for if I ever have to do that again in future projects.
What did I learn from this process:
From this process I learned that it is very important to check that the audio is always recording and also to record a buzz track so that if there is a moment where I have no audio recordings then it fills in the background with some ambient sound as well as creating an atmosphere for the location. I would also want to make a more detailed shot list as we only did a rough story board, at the time we thought it would be kay and enough to follow however when we started filming we realised we had no where near enough detail planned of what to film so we had to partly make it up as we went along which did make the production feel quite messy and I would not want to have that again. Finally I learned that it's so important to get the right amount of footage, too much can make it seem over edited and too technical which distracts the viewer from the story and too little can appear unprofessional. I really enjoyed this location project and learned a lot which I will take which me into my Script to Screen shoot.
Script for THE PHONE BOX:
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