How The First Half of Filming Went

On Sunday we completed filming the first half of our chick flick film opening. Filming went well, we managed to film everything we needed within the 2 hour and the filming location was even better than we expected.

As we had never visited our filming location before we found it difficult to plan what we wanted to film and where, but when we arrived we found out there was a spacious room with a glass table and chairs in, we decided this would be the main office room where most of the filming took place.

Many of the shots took multiple takes to get right and we took it in turn to film different ones. My job was to film the match on action shot of Samantha (the intern) opening the door and walking through and her walking down the corridor. Both took a while to get right and took many takes. When she opened the door it was particularly difficult to ensure I didn't cut her head off whilst walking behind her. Watching the footage back now, I feel the part where she comes round the other side of the door looks unprofessional so I may just use the clip where she opens the door and then cut to her walking down the corridor. When Samantha walked down the corridor, was the most difficult clip to film. The main difficulty was trying to walk at the same pace but a bit ahead of her and keep her head in shot all whilst walking backwards. But I am pleased with how it looks now after the many attempts.

Chaya's job was to film the wide shot of Samantha entering the room and sitting down, this also took many takes. The issue with this clip was also ensuring Samantha's head didn't get cut out of shot, which was proved to be very problematic when she sat down. We then realised we had to essentially 'lead' her with the camera and move it down before she has sat down. Chaya also featured in the opening as an extra who measures a big wall poster against the wall. The use of extras doing odd jobs made the office feel like there was more than 2 people working there and more true to life.

Georgia also made an appearance as the person who brought the clothes rail on and sorted the clothes.  She also had the responsibility of filming the over the shoulder shot of Samantha reading the confidential letter. This also took many attempts as we experimented with the camera, using the tripod to make the camera film higher and lower shots.

Overall, we had a very successful day and used our time well. We need to discuss when to film the next half of our opening.