Anti-Smoking Video. Smoking Kills.

Today Matty's group filmed the short anti-smoking video we were asked to create for the assignment and a competition.

A few weeks ago we sat as a whole group and decided on teams as two videos will be made, we selected the teams based on who had an idea - this was Matty and Kane.

Then the crew was decided, Matty's team:

Matty as Director 

Myself as Assitant Director

Ben as Camera Operator 

Chloe as Production Manager

Rhys as Boom operator 

Jordan would act as runner between the groups. 

Matty had explained his idea to the group so that we all knew what he wanted, he sourced the location and actors prior to filming. 

On the day the crew call was for 9:30, I was there earlier than Matty so I brought the actors into the green room and started sorting kit, when Matty came in he explained he also wanted the track and dolly which we quickly added to the pile of equipment. We told the location we would be there from 10 however filming started later because the gun Matty needed to use had an orange tip on the end which needed painting - this added on some time - and Matty needed to go buy cigarettes for a prop so we went to buy the cigarettes whilst the gun was being painted. Then we were ready to go. We decided we didn't need Jordan as it was a small shoot and had no dialogue therefore Rhys became a 2nd AD. 

We walked over to the location which was a very short walk from college and started setting up from 10:30. We filmed the interior shots first with the extras then moved to the exterior. The first shot was a tracking shot using the dolly, the floor was uneven which would normally cause a problem as we have not blocks to put underneath the track to make it level but it actually worked in our favour as the dolly came to a natural slow stop which looked great. 

We had a problem with lighting in the interior as the seats the actors were sat on had a window directly next to it which affected some shots, we tried to use Matty's jacket to block it but was not very successful.

Another issue was that Matty had not wrote a script as there was no dialogue but the actors were required to improvise a conversation which had to have an option for the main character to leave and go outside for a smoke.

The exterior shots went fine with no real problems or issues other than a bullet being too big for the gun and it being obvious. 

Since they were in the pub, the characters required drinks. This lead to possible continuity errors if they drank them between takes however, the main angle for which you could clearly see the drinks and their levels was filmed in one shot multiple times and Matty would choose the best one from there without cutting multiple together. 

Matty was very prepared for the shoot, he knew the shots he wanted and how everything would look and work with the gun. Some details needed to be worked out on-set for example how the bullet would go in the gun - this was cleverly using the camera angles and editing as the bullet was a lot bigger than that would be in that size of gun. 

We worked very well as a team, efficiently working to time to produce a video of near-professional standard.