Production (Shooting Journal) - Main Task

Filming day went rather smoothly. But we did have a few expected problems. We were filming in someone's loft which meant that setting up was a but of a hassle since we had to keep going up and down the stairs, clearing what we did not need from the bedroom and assembling the set. All together filming took approximately 5 hours, however it did not at all feel like it (and we got pizza to break up the day). What caused the most difficulty was, what we called 'the troublesome tracking shot' but we did build a rather nifty mechanism for it.

We managed to balance the tripod on top of a small penny-board, despite not being able to get the circular movement around the head of 'Peter' it did enable us to get a relatively steady shot. We also used this to carry out the pull-in shot however, this did not work out since the camera was too shaky and it was hard to focus since we had to position it right against the wall in order to get a wide shot. This was a little frustrating since I think this would have made a really nice opening shot. But it was great that we managed to get a steady enough shot for the tracking shot so we could use this as the alternate opening shot. 

The location was perfect since we did actually take over a teenage boy's bedroom, which was perfect for our 17-year-old character, Peter. As for making the set appeared as if it was in America, we simply dressed the set with American sweets, American CDs (bands). Finding these was relatively easy since now most shops seem to sell American sweets (albeit for more money). It took quite a lot of time to dress the set since the stairwell was so narrow and getting things up to the loft was quite hard. We also wanted to make sure that everything was in a good position so that it would appear in frame and just look how we envisaged it. Overall I think that it did look how we wished it to from the desk point-of-view however, the bed just didn't look right and felt a little neglected. This was a shame as it can be seen as not even a bedroom but just a 'study' space. Despite this, I do not think that the bed is really needed to imply that it is a teenage boy's bedroom since I think with the way we dressed it with all of his things, that it did look like a bedroom in the end and the shot of the bed itself was not necessary and would look like quite a 'flat' shot.




















Another obstacle which we had to tackle was being able to film shots as wide as possible since it was a small room, with five people in. This lead to me squeezing into awkward small spaces and trying to focus the camera without actually being able to see the screen however, it worked out in the end. This also caused some struggles when it came to the tracking shot and so we had to compromise and not have a tracking shot of the whole bedroom, but rather just the desk. The desk was actually hand-made by one of our group member's dad who specially made it for the film opening, with the main character in mind.