R+P Post 18: Our test shoot

Our Test shoot:
We had a Test-shoot create a preliminary draft of what our final sequence may look like, and to get an idea of what it was like to film in location and in a more serious environment. Having a test shoot was vital for our project as it allowed us to get an idea and plan ahead to problems we might face on the main shoot. Me and Noa worked well together, breaking the workload into easily manageable chunks. We started by creating shoot-boards for the day. These were very useful as they allowed us to have all the information we needed for filming each shot including: timings, dialogue, framing and location, actors and props.

Test shoot-board page 1

Test shoot-board page 2

Test shoot-board page 3

Test shoot-board page 4

We started the day off at 9:00 in the morning, this gave Noa and I time to set up before the actors arrived at 9:30. The day went well and we finished at around 1:30 in the afternoon. However there were some things that could have gone better and need improvement.

Improvements needed:

• Better plan out the shots involving Toby e.g. the puppet shots, as they feel slightly clunky and really slow down the pace of the film. In our main shoot we are just going to use the puppet for the interviews, and have the actor for all the movement shots.

• Changing Shot 4. This will be changed to a tracking shot of Joyce, that will make more narrative sense, and feel less staged and more like a real documentary.
• Use better lighting in all shots, specifically the interview and living room shots. We attempted to go with natural light but this caused some issues e.g. Joyce doing squats and her face being in shadows, so for our main shoot we will be using the lighting rig to get, natural looking, but good quality lighting.

• Use props to give a better sense that Toby is going off to Uni. We can do this by simply just scattering cardboard boxes around the house.

Improving Casting and Costumes:
Below is a table of the casting and costumes of the characters in our sequence for the main shoot.

Finalised cast and costume list with changes from the test shoot.

• We are going to recast the actor who played Toby, as we do not feel he is correct for the role, and his dialogue felt clunky and wooden. We also got the impression that he did not enjoy the filming environment, and he would rather not do it again.
• Change Kenny. As it stands Kenny is an underused and boring character, who we feel could be better used to create comedy and awkward situations. We realised that if Joyce payed more attention to Toby, then realistically Kenny would act up and try to be more like his mother to get attention. We are going to change him into a more narcissistic personality and put him in more shots. This will also help to even out some of the balancing problems with the majority of the sequence being taken up by Joyce.
• Joyce is going to stay almost exactly the same in our main shoot, as we feel we really nailed her character.

Improving the sets:

• To improve the interview set-up for our main shoot, we plan to make it look much more professional, to improve the contrast between this and the other shots. To do this we plan to remove any unnecessary props from the background, such as the kitchen roll, to try and make the shot less cluttered. We also plan to improve the lighting for this shot.

• In the bedroom shots for the main shoot we want to actually create the atmosphere of someone who is going to uni, as if Toby were really moving out, he would have more than one suitcase. Therefore, in the main shoot we plan to clutter the room with lots of card-board boxes.

• In the living room set-up to improve these shots next time we will be trying to improve the lighting, with more artificial lighting. This was a big problem we noticed when editing, as it was very hard to see Joyce's face a lot of the time.