Second Test Shoot/ First Practice Shoot 02.02.13

On February 2nd, we went for our second test shoot/ first practice shoot. Whereas our first test shoot was more to figure out the issues with our proposed script and also to rehearse the sequence at Primrose Hill, the second test shoot was more about pinning down the technical details of the sequence, such as how framing would work and how we would ensure continuity.

 

What we improved on from the previous shoot:

- On the day of our first test shoot, we reached the top of the hill at 8am and luckily caught the end of the sunrise. For our second test shoot, however, we made sure we got to Primrose Hill for before the scheduled time of the sunrise (7.38); we were therefore able to get 13 minutes of footage of the sun rising above the London skyline, which we may use in our actual sequence.

- We had rewritten our shot list between the two shoots so that Lila no longer walks to where her friends, Atticus and Jess, are standing. In our rewritten shot list, the two friends walk over to the bench where Lila is sitting, and exchange a few lines of dialogue. This keeps up the pace of the sequence, as before, the proposed 'walking' section was quite long and tedious.

- We also rewrote our script, adding lines which had a comic undertone and therefore setting the mood for the film as lighthearted. Our feedback suggested that we had not thought much about how 'life after cancer' appeals to our target audience of 16-24 year old girls, and so we changed the script to add an element of comedy to an otherwise serious theme.

- We had planned to use continuity techniques such as shot-reverse-shot, and we did this by shooting whole conversations from various angles, so that we could later cut them into a sensible order.

 

 

Some problems we encountered:

- There were other people shooting the sunrise on the hill and so we had to make sure we did not obstruct their filming whilst trying to get our own footage of the sunrise.

- Primrose Hill is a popular spot for joggers, and particularly around 9am, we found that many people were jogging up the hill; we therefore had to ensure that we shot when there were fewer people around, in order to maintain continuity.

- It was much colder than we had planned for, and we found that, at various points, both the cast and the crew were too cold to film/act. This meant that the whole shoot took slightly longer than planned, but we know now to prepare beforehand.