Uncanny Project - First Shoot

Today we had the 6 hour shoot which was to predominantly film the bedroom scene with the guy drifting out of the bed. For the first 3 hours we also had the assistance of the cinematography group who were in charge of filming it and setting up the lighting.
ur first job was to make sure the bedroom set was ready and to assemble the bed covers onto the wall and put lino wooden flooring around it to make it look like it was on the floor and not a wall.

I also got to learn a little bit about cinematography as I'm not taking that as a skill, and I think it is useful to see the processes they have to go through because being a director, something I am interested in, you need to know how much time you need to allow for filming and how long processes might take like art direction or camera. With camera or cinematography there is certainly a lot more to it then just white balancing, putting it in the right position then shooting they were sorting out the focus, checking the light levels, setting up the track and the lighting and also using reflectors to get the right level of light for different shots. It seemed quite a delicate and long process trying to get everything right and opened my eyes to how long each shot must take when doing a professional feature length film.

A few of us were in charge of the art direction for this scene so we had to work together putting the stuff up and then checking it through the camera to make sure it looked good in the frame. We were limited with props and time so it was a bit of a rushed job but I think we did our best with what we could. One of the main things I learnt from this first scene was that the art director needs to check it through the camera as well because that's the most important thing as it is all going to been seen and shot through the perspective of the camera and there's no point in making a set look all pretty if it doesn't look like that through the camera.

Within the group we all took turns doing the different roles - Director, AD (Assistant Director) and Art Director/s so some times we weren't needed. I thought this would have meant people would be sitting around and it would have been all over the place but I think it actually went quite smoothly and because we were working quite quickly, as time was limited, we were never sat around too long and everyone was helping each other out.

In our own personal projects there's never usually enough people to need an AD so it was interesting to get just a small insight to what their job is and they do have quite an important role because they have to keep everything in check and push people to get ready so it seems like it is a very hands on job.

When reading about 1st AD Chris Newman, who has been a 1st AD on films including 'Love Actually' and 'Sleepy Hollow', he said that "Being an assistant director is a jack-of-all-trades job. On a film set everybody has better knowledge about his or her own speciality than you do, whereas you know a little bit about everybody's job. You have to make educated guesses to see you through - and that is the difficult bit."
Also from looking at How to Film School website it seems the AD has a lot of responsibility from the onset of a production as they not only help with the actual shoot but are there right through dealing with the script stages and much more in-between.

I carried out this role for one of the scenes and I learnt what an AD has to say on set before a take to make sure crew and cast are ready and also to keep things moving.
One thing we didn't get told to say but I read somewhere is that sometimes the AD will say 'Waiting on..' so that the crew and director will know who we're still waiting for before they can start rolling.
They may also say 'final checks please' which means people should do any last minute adjustments if they need to.
Some AD's may say 'lock up' or lock it down' to make sure nothing else interupts when just about to go for a take.
They will then say 'quiet on set' which indicates they are about to go for a take so everyone needs to stop what they're doing and be quiet.
They will then say 'roll camera' and 'roll sound' or 'turnover' which signals both camera and sound to start rolling. The sound recordist should then reply with speed to confirm the sound equipment is running at the correct speed and then the camera operator will shout set so they know the camera is rolling.
It is then the job of the Director or sometimes the AD to say action.
Afterwards the AD should check with the director if they were satisfied with that take if not the AD might say 'going again' or if everything has been successful they will say 'moving on' or 'next scene'.



After filming the bedroom scene the cinematography group left so we were in charge of camera and lighting for the next scene which was the bleeding walls. In preparation we had to put up four grey flats, using the A-frames and weights to steady them, once they were in position holes were drilled into the top of them for the blood to be squirted through. While this was being done, others were working on mixing up the fake blood concoction and putting it into syringes to be squirted through. The rest of the group were getting the camera ready and preparing the lighting. Once we were ready most of the group had to go behind the walls so we could squeeze the blood through so that it would trickle down and seem like the walls were bleeding. 

When we'd finished I went round to look at it and was a little disappointed with how it looked because the blood had just trickled down in a long thin line so it wasn't very effective on camera. We discussed it afterwards and said that if we were to do it again we would have used a different technique like having some sort of guttering rigged at the top and pouring it from there or maybe could have just carefully tipped it down the wall straight from a jug so more would flow at once making it look more effective. I'm glad we did it though as it was good to try it out and then learn how we could do it better next time.

Sources:

http://www.creativeskillset.org/film/stories/production/article_3410_1.asp


http://howtofilmschool.com/working-as-a-1st-assistant-director/