Principal Photography Weekend – some numbers
1 hour, 30 minutes and 45 seconds of video footage from Day 1 (Saturday 1st May) and 1 hour, 39 minutes and 39 seconds of video footage from Day 2 (Sunday 2nd May) making a total of 3 hours, 10 minutes and 24 seconds of video footage.
48 minutes and 16 seconds of audio from Day 1 (Saturday 1st May) and 1 hour, 23 minutes and 25 seconds of audio making a total of 2 hours, 11 minutes and 41 seconds of audio.
So, a total of 5 hours, 22 minutes and 5 seconds combined of video and audio that I needed to listen to. For a 10-minute film.
I know that in Feature Films ending up with 5 (finished) minutes of useable footage after a day’s filming is considered good. Which is exactly what I have. And I always prefer to have more footage to choose from rather than less. But it is still a lot of footage to look through.
Being a perfectionist is a double-edged sword. I do usually end up with films that most people think are pretty polished. And this is because I keep going until I feel I have got the right take. But that increases the time that it takes filming and there is a knock on to editing. I am pleased that I arranged for my Principal Photography to be as soon as possible after the Easter Holidays, since that deliberately does give me more editing time.
When I reflect on my filming process, I think that one thing that I need to get more practised at is estimating how long a particular shot or a series of shots will take me to film. It is an area that Covid has really affected badly. Ordinarily we would have been ramping up to do loads of filming this year in College. I know our tutors had lots of short projects planned for us, in addition to the main units. And my 90% Bloopers Group have been discussing lots of ideas all through Year 1. I feel like Year 1 was sort of finding our feet and learning lots. I and my group were starting to feel more confident just before the first main lockdown. We had had a great time filming my Interactive Neo Noir Crime film “on location” at my Dad’s work We had 2 very full days there, Adam set up his sound equipment outside the office we were filming in, I had 2 cameras in the office and a behind the scenes camera too. It all just felt so much more professional. My main actor was still Jack, since he is really good. He takes direction really well and understands what I am asking him to do. He is also good at developing his character even further and making extra suggestions. H made some great suggestions over this weekend for additional lines that he felt his character of Sam would say in particular instances.
But we also had 2 other actors who are not in 90% Bloopers. One is from the drama school that I have attended since I was 5. He is a great actor, and I think we all enjoyed working with external actors. We all felt excited about where our filming was going to go and were looking forward to our Year 1 FMPs.
Then Covid struck and everywhere went into lockdown.
It has had a huge affect on our course and filming opportunities. Our tutors all have done an amazing job in keeping everything going, keeping us learning and developing, enabling us to do as much filming as possible under these difficult circumstances. But it has not been what any of us, tutors included would have wanted in an ideal world.
And Covid has kept getting in the way. For example, for our Promo film, we had to work around Adam suddenly having to self-isolate for 10 days due to being on the College bus with someone who had Covid. This through our planning for filming our Promo film. But we are all good at problem solving and we redid our schedule. Then at 5pm the day before we were about to do our main filming, we were regretfully told that due to changed Covid Rules we couldn’t film during College time off site. This was nobody’s fault, and everyone was doing their best to help us, but it’s what we have been battling with all this year. I feel really proud of what we have managed to achieve under these circumstances. Let’s face it, many professional productions have shut down over the period.
I am also really proud, on reflection, that we did manage to get together over the Autumn half term in our own time and film our own adaptation of a scene from the book Emma. There is a link to it under my Diversity section. We also managed to set up some podcast sessions, recorded at College, before we went into full lockdown again after Christmas.
We have had to concentrate all our efforts on getting our Units done to a high standard. But coming back to where I started, I feel I would have liked to make MORE films, lots more films, and by that I also mean more planned films, with detailed shot lists and well planned out, since I feel that to increase my filming “speed” I need to be able to measure how long shots are taking against a plan. I prefer just taking a camera and filming, but I can see that to improve I need to be able to look back at what I have done and see where I can improve.
We (90% Bloopers) have great plans for more filming after our Year 2 FMPs are finished, both in College supported by our tutors and out of College. Hopefully I can get the extra practise I want then to work out ways to reduce my filming time and get the same results.