I just finished shooting all the footage I need for my 15 second film. I had originally planned to film myself, but I soon realised that this would not be possible and would result in a worse film so I asked my friend to stand in for me. Overall it went well. I learnt a lot of things and made some compromises.
The biggest problem I found was with space. When I wrote the storyboard I hadn't got an idea of how I would set up the tripod for the camera because my house is quite small. When I came to shoot it was very difficult to set up the tripod. A lot of the shots do not feature the same height and angle as in my storyboards because it simply wasn't possible (for instance, the toilet seat being lifted I had drawn as being from the right side, straight, but there is only 10cm of space to the right of my toilet).
Another thing I learnt was how useful it is to make a shooting schedule. I wrote down all the scenes I needed to film and divided them by which ones I needed my friend for and which ones I didn't. I chose him because we have similar arms, so I could get the most out of the shoots with him and shoot the scenes where I could use my arm later on. This made time easier to manage, because I could use the time I had to shoot him better and not worry about the rest of the scenes.
A couple of scenes didn't work out how I had intended due to my limited knowledge about cameras. I set up the shot for the toothpaste going on to the brush but looking back at the footage, it's out of focus. I had a hard time setting up a shot where I could get a good enough close up of the brush as I held it and to get the toothpaste spread across it. It's disappointing that after all that it doesn't look very good but I will try and proceed and re-shoot if necessary.
I also forgot to shoot a few of the scenes on Saturday, I had overlooked them on the list so I shot the remaining parts today. The light levels weren't too different so hopefully it will look OK. I'm going to be adjusting the lighting anyway so I should be able to balance things out.
Overall I did OK. I learnt some things, got more experience with camera and my first experience doing a tiny bit of directing. Now it's time to edit it.
