Rough Cut Screening

Noticed a lot of things I didn't like in the rough cut screening, having other people look at the unfinished work in such a big room and a critical way was painful! The biggest two things I noticed was the off eye lines and the soft focus of one of the shots on the sister that kept getting cut back to.

I understand why the eyelines were off, it was something I considered on the day, we shot inbetween the two characters and turned very little. We should have shot from one side of both characters and just framed up differently. As far as the focus is concerned there isn't really an excuse, its tricky on the little screens but I will just have to be more careful next time.

The other issue was that the characters and camera weren't moving with the ambulance. I tested this by shooting handcam and by shaking the ambulance from outside but neither got the desired effect. It's something I will have to research more for the next project.

There were also suggestions about using visual effects to make the brother seem more drunk. Whilst this is a good idea in the future I'm against blurry POV's for drunk people, I think they rarely look good and usually cheapen the film.

I will be going back to the ambulance to shoot a few close ups that were suggested such as the leaflet and medical equipment that looks somewhat abstract in a Breaking Bad style.

Shooting!

Shooting went really well. The actors were really great and there were no problems on set. We set up pretty efficiently despite the cramped space. We had a few issues with some of the shots and weren't sure about wether we crossed the 180 rule but in the end we decided to follow the storyboards. Each shot was quite simply lit with a white fill and a slightly yellow key. With the shoot going well we finished earlier than expected! I can't wait to see the footage.

Practice Shoot

Tested lots of things on our practice shoot! At first we couldnt get the lights in the ambulance on so I id a lot of testing without them, looking at how much light we could get with just one hand held light.

 This is the lighting I owuld have used if we couldnt get the light on... Whislt it isn't realistic the darkness on Peter is really nice, it reflects the character he is standing in for nicely.

 I did a quick ISO check, we would use thefirst image which had little to no grain.

 We finally got the lights on! They are awfully yellow but give a lot of background light. Jacob was worried about how dark the previous images were so despite higher lighting we will keep the ISO mid as it was at 800.

 Quick ISO check, first image is optimal at 800ISO.

 I whitened the image a little to balance it out and make it look a little more sterile. Playing with warm and cold light in the argument on sceen might be interesting an I will put a lot of consideration into the colour of my Key and Fill.

Storyboards and Scripts

AS said the storyboards are already out there. The location is fairly closed and small and essentially the scene is a conversation so the storyboards mainly comprise of shot reverse shots and the occasional two shot run throughout the film. I am not sure exactly about the placement of the camera for some of the shots but I am sure as we get on set for our practice shoot it will become more obvious.

Starting "Bad Habit"

Today I began my work on "Bad Habit" by Jacob Waterall. I am coming on to the project a little late as their previous cinematographer has left. We film in a mere week and I'm worried about the massive amounts of work I have ahead of me....

Fortunately Jacob and the previous cinematographer had done a lot of work and shot lists and story boards have already been generated. Whilst I feel the need to stamp my own style onto the shots and film, with such tight time restraints I am willing to leave the shots as they are for the Bad Habit short and leave myself time for more creative input on the longer project "Flatline".

The project it self is a fairly simple one mainly consisting of a conversation between a brother and sister in the back of an ambulance. There are a couple of things I want to focus on:
1. Making the vehicle look as though its moving with occasional steady cam shots.
2. Using framing and Focus to seperate and bring the characters together at appropriate moment in the narrative.

I met with Jacob an the group, the planning has gone well and the production seems almost ready to go, I think we should be shooting on the 5th.