production diary

1. Production diary- Culture In the digital age
19/4/22
Day 1:
On the first day of filming, I began to plan out the different clips that I would be using
throughout the editing process. Before I began filming, I decided to give myself some time
to run through my plan and check it is what would be best for my documentary and if it
would fit the given brief. I did this by going through my rationale and creating a general plan
on where I would put specific clips and how I would transition both from in and out of them
smoothly.
However, before I started filming, I ran into a few issues, one of these issues that I came
across was the actors that I had originally asked to be interviewed as part of my
documentary became unavailable so that delayed the filming process by a few days. This
allowed me to look for a new person to interview. When trying to find another actor to take
part in the interview that I had planned previously for my documentary.
After getting in contact with multiple friends, Erin was more than happy to take part in an
interview for my campaign.
20/4/22
Day 2:
On the second day of production, I arranged a meeting with Erin to discuss the ideas that I
had planned for my documentary and what parts id like her to take part in. When discussing
the general idea of the documentary and what I think would suit it best, I wanted to get her
opinion on the idea and gain feedback from her. From this point forward, we discussed
questions that would be appropriate for the brief and for my target audience, seeing as Erin
is within the 16–34-year-old age bracket I also believe that she was the best actor for the
interview.
After discussing the questions, we then arranged a time that would be best for us to film
and for when we are both free. We agreed that the next day we would film the interview.
21/4/22
Day 3:
On day three of filming, I set up the camera in the office room in my house as I believe it
was the quietest and the best room for the interview. As a tripod was unavailable while
filming, I improvised by placing the camera onto of some books so I could get the best angle
for my interviews. One I had the camera in the right place, I then moved Erin into the centre
of the camera where the shot looked the best. Before pressing record, we quickly ran
through the questions to make sure that she was comfortable with answering them and to
make sure she had a general idea of what she was going to say for them questions. When
setting up the camera I wanted a medium close up of the actor, which is the most common
used shot when filming interviews as it just shows the actors head up to the top of the

2. actor’s chest, I placed my camera on top of a few books as a tripod was not available for me
at the time. I then directed Erin, so she was central in the frame and there was an equal
amount of empty space around her in the shot. Once again, quickly before filming I quickly
went over some questions with her to make sure she was very clear on what they questions
were and how she was going to make the answers relevant to the question.
Once we had finished our first run through of filming, I then rewatched the footage with her
to not only see if I was happy with how it looks but to also see if Erin was happy with how it
looked. After close consideration we both pointed out mistakes that we both were unhappy
with and decided it would benefit the documentary more if we filmed the interview. When
reviewing the documentary, we were both unhappy with: The lighting, the position of the
actor and the position of the camera. Once we discussed how we could work together to
improve the quality of the video, we decided it would be best to restart the next day.
22/4/22
Before we started filming again, we spend around an hour finding the perfect angle, camera
positions and lighting to ensure that it would produce the best product that I possibly could.
When changing specific elements in the filming I moved the camera to face a plain grey wall
to ensure that it gave a more simplistic look to the interview, comparing to the day prior
where I had placed the camera facing the door where both the door and the desk could be
seen in the shot which looked very messy and unplanned. With the lighting I decided to use
the main ceiling lights and a ring light in the retake of the documentary rather than the
natural light and a small lamp which I was using the day before which made the shot look
very unevenly lit and unprofessional. With the final problem that we resolved was the
positioning of the actor, the day prior to this I had Erin sitting in front of the office door
which once again looked very unprofessional and messy, so to fix this problem I directed
Erin to sit in front of the grey wall in the office which gave the interview a simplistic look
which I have said previously.
Once we had finished filming, we once again looked back over the footage and were overall
happy with the final product of the interview.