Filming in the Cellar

Our filming proved difficult considering the camera shots were blurry and the white balance destroyed any kind of colour in the shots. We also had a hard time making 2 worklights look like a single candle light. Obviously this task is impossible, and some of the shots had light in them which was out of place and forced. Also, some of the shots from the storyboard were too hard to pull off. Particularly the shot of James replacing the checkers pieces. It was too difficult to get the board and his head in frame. Also, the lighting during this proved to be too hard a task. We couldn't illuminate his face and the chess board without being able to see the light on the wall behind him. The work lights made our task extremely hard.

We were going to use a chess board, but on arrival, I found out that in fact we had no pieces, so we improvised using bottle tops. They doubled as checkers pieces. We also couldn't fit a table down into the cellar, so again we improvised by using crates stacked on each other. After some re-shuffling, we got a pretty even surface for the checkers board to go on.

Another difficulty was the cramped environment we were shooting in. The room we were shooting in had only 1 entrance, so the lighting could only come from that entrance. This made our use of lighting very limited, as we could only manipulate it in certain ways. Also, the layout of the room meant that we couldn't manoeuvre the camera very well. Often the cramped conditions meant that some shots had to be scrapped completely. Another fault was our shot schedule. There were numerous shots where the camera was situated in the same place, but we chose not to do these shots one after the other. While shooting in sequence means that you definitely know you've got all the shots, it can be very time consuming, so when we film this coming weekend, I will have formulated a shot schedule that will hopefully cut down our shooting time and increase our efficiency.

However, now we are re-shooting with the XM2 camera and redheads with gels, we can light each shot properly. Also we will hopefully not have to contend with blurry shots or a colour draining white balance. Using the red and white gels will hopefully give a homely glow and spread the light evenly. We will also be able to set up the lighting in the room itself, which will make our lighting options wider, hence making our lighting much better.

Posted by Michael McGroarty