Week 6 - Class Shoot

Class Shoot - 1st Time working with a bigger crew

This week was the class shoot. It was our 1st time working with a bigger crew. It was good to learn the hierarchy of the set and how each position works. It came at a perfect time, right before the actual Fiction Filmmaking II class shoot (which are coming up next week).

No one wrote up a scene to shoot, so Marcus gave us a scene and we each got assigned a role. Marika was assigned director, Kat was assigned 1st AD and I was assigned DOP. With the help of the Art Team we got a really nice set and were able to get something interesting. The energy in the class was quite positive and friendly. Everyone was patient with each other as everyone or most of us were doing this for the 1st time.

We built up the studio set wall and rigged them with sandbags in order to mimmic an office. The art team found cool bags and plants and created a really interesting set. 1 of the walls had a window.

Our director wanted our lighting setup to replicate 11am lighting and she wanted to use the overhead studio lights. Our actors worked together and gave quite an amazing performance. So much so, it wasn't distracting at all. It felt so natural we were focusing on the aesthetics mistakes more than the performance itself.

Our lighting setup was a little problematic because our contrast ratio was too big and there was no light falling into the actors eyes. We had to open up the blinds and use the natural exterior light to help us light the scene.

We had a 2 light setup on top of that. 1 light was the window backlight. It was a 2K light with a white diffusion silk on it and a black flag to avoid the light spill. On the other side we had an ARRI 650K light. Each light was acting as Key for 1 actor and backlight for the other actor.

We also added an exterior wall background behind the window. To light it we added a pepper and focused the light on a spot on the background.

We did 1 Dolly Back shot where we set up the cam with sandbags on the dolly. The camera operator was up on the dolly and another camera crew member was slowly pulling back the camera.

Measuring distance from Dolly to talent to get proper focus marks for the Dolly Back shot...

Talent Practicing and Crew working hard...

On the 2nd shot we had to add more light so we added a 650K ARRI with a diffusion silk on a C-Stand in front of it.

Sound Recordist giving his opinion on talent

performance

Sound Recordist Practicing an annoyed Sound Guy face

SOUND DEPARTMENT...

I think this speaks for itself they clearly live in a different world...

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Comments and Takeaways

This class was a lot of pressure. It was the 1st time I was taking on such a big role. I think it was a very valuable experience. I noticed I was following too much what the director was asking even though it wasn't going to result in the look she was looking for. I was a little afraid to give my opinion too much but I think I needed to be a little more clear with her. It would've been interesting to change positions a little more often to touch on a little more roles than we did but all in all it was a really useful exercise where I learned a lot about how things work and how a crew works together. There were moments of miscommunication where a lot of departments were waiting around on us but we tried to correct that as much as possible.