The document summarizes two days of shooting for a film project. On the first day, the team successfully shot half their scenes and got high quality footage, though they lacked quantity and some shots lacked continuity. Their equipment and lighting worked well. The second day was less productive due to exhaustion, as they arrived late and had trouble focusing, getting mostly shaky shots that did not fit their vision. They scheduled another shoot to fill gaps. The team learned they need better focus and confidence, and to not shoot when too tired.

1. FIRST SHOOTING DAYS
A REVIEW – MGFK

2. INTRODUCTION
Last weekend, our group went out to shoot as much of our exterior scenes as we
could in Burbage woods. In total, we’ve visited this location around 4 times now.
We took a lot of equipment, including the rigs/filters/lenses previously mentioned
as well as some food, extra tripods (as provided by Jake Foulkes), and a rode mic
attached to a broom pole to act as a boom mic.
A huge amount of preparation had gone into these days.This included some
unmentioned personal research that I had been doing for a long time in the run-up,
which was mostly tips for using a DSLR.
Overall, I think the days varied in quality. At some moments we also reached great
levels of quality, and at others we took shortcuts where available. A detailed
explanation of each day can be seen ahead.

3. DAY ONE: PREFACE
For day one, we shot with four people.This included Jake Foulkes (Director of
Photography), Alex Rayner (Cast/General Shooting assistant), Morgan Glover-Evans
(Director) and Fin Kelly (Sound Manager).
We met at my house at 7, arrived on location at 8:30, and wrapped at 11:30.We
completed about of half of the shots we needed, which was the second scene.
We made the decision to start at the end of our shot list and work our way up to
tackle some of the more difficult shots we hadn’t run through yet. I think this was a
good decision, as it got our cast involved as early on as possible.

4. DAY ONE: WHATWENTWELL
 At the start of the day. we got through a huge number of shots.The telephoto
lens also worked extremely well, and -overall- I was very happy with the quality of
our videos.
 The lighting/ISO/White balance was all very solid, and there were no huge
problems there.
 The Rode mic was great, and the quality of the audio was solid.
 All of our equipment performed exceptionally well, and gave us exactly what we
wanted.
 Alex was also really great, and gave us a really nice physical performance as the
role of Hayden.
 Finn playing the villain was a good choice on our part, and he really did look quite
menacing.

5. DAY ONE: WHAT COULD’VE BEEN DONE
BETTER
 We spent a lot of time on only a small collection of shots.This was great for the
quality, but our quantity of footage definitely lacked.
 Sometimes, the shot continuity lacked and transitions may be a little harder to
edit as a result.
 The performance of Alex was great, but my performance faltered in a few places.
It’s not too bad, but it probably could’ve been better.
 The storage of our equipment was very lacklustre, which meant that sometimes it
was hard to find what we wanted and also that sometimes our equipment got
quite dirty.
 Our sound recording was a little inconsistent, as sometimes we changed the
settings between shots. However, this can easily be fixed in post.

6. DAY ONE: OVERALL
Overall, I’m really happy with the footage we got on Saturday.
We were inventive with shots, tired to get a variety of stabiliser/tripod setups and
found a really fitting location for the scene.
While we definitely weren’t able to get every single shot of our production done,
the ones we did get were of a really high quality.

7. DAYTWO: PREFACE
For day two, we only went as a three because the scene we were shooting didn’t
require Alex’s character. Heading into it, we knew this day would be less taxing, but
unfortunately none of us was able to sleep that well and as such we had a very slow
start.
We arrived much later than last, at around 9:30, which was a problem.The forest
was very busy at this time, with a lot of dogs/dog walkers.This made it difficult to
shoot some of the shots with sound.
We wanted to complete all of the shots from scene one as fast as possible, but
things slowed down soon after we arrived and we only managed to record 20 takes
of various shots, never really getting into what we wanted to do.

8. DAY ONE: WHATWENTWELL
 We found a few new locations that looked nice.
 We got into most of our shots quickly, and were always thinking about
what needed to be achieved.
 We moved between sites much more effectively, and our overall storage
situation was much better.
 We were much more accustomed to our equipment.

9. DAYTWO: WHAT COULD’VE BEEN DONE
BETTER
 We were all far too tired from the previous days shoot and barley got anything
done.
 Progress was very slow
 We deviated too much from our shot list, meaning we were trying to some up with
new shots and ideas on the spot.This, if anything, just wasted time.
 We weren’t quick enough, and didn’t have nearly as much of a focus as we
should’ve.
 The shots we did get are mostly far too shaky or don’t fit very well with the overall
theme we’re going for.

10. DAYTWO: OVERALL
Unfortunately, our second day was markedly worse than the first.
This was probably down to our lack of focus and, mostly, sheer exhaustion.
Thankfully, though, we’ve set another shooting date for this upcoming Saturday on
the 14th to fill in any gaps that we missed in previous shoots.
Mistakes and missteps are definitely part of the process. From this experience, we
learned that it is near-impossible to will yourself to be creative when you’re either
not in the mood or flat-out too tired to do so.We needed a much better sense of
focus that day, and much more confidence in our shots.
I know for a fact that I lacked confidence that day, and was much more anxious
about whether the shot would look good or not.When moving forward we will
definitely not only have a better sense of purpose but also a more relaxed attitude,
as that is when our best work has been produced.