Wednesday 29 March 2017
Unit 13: Multi-Camera Techniques - Production Diary
The Ufilms Oscars Rundown: February 9th 2017 -
This day consisted solely of planning, as seen below.
The Ufilms Oscars Rundown: February 20th 2017 -
On the Monday, I was working as a presenter for episode one. For this, I worked alongside fellow classmate, Adam, an we were on-screen the whole time. We memorised our lines as well as we could beforehand, wore specific outfits and stood in front of the camera.
The crew set up the set, which was a black cloth suspended from metal poles behind us, as well as some more cloth on the floor to remove all of the background from the scene.
This day consisted solely of planning, as seen below.
The Ufilms Oscars Rundown: February 20th 2017 -
On the Monday, I was working as a presenter for episode one. For this, I worked alongside fellow classmate, Adam, an we were on-screen the whole time. We memorised our lines as well as we could beforehand, wore specific outfits and stood in front of the camera.
The crew set up the set, which was a black cloth suspended from metal poles behind us, as well as some more cloth on the floor to remove all of the background from the scene.
This process was represented in a drawing by one of the other Ufilms members.
While this doesn't fully apply to our presentation, the boom poles and cameras were in the same places. The difference on set was the lack of couches or mannequin, providing ample room to stand, which, in turn, meant the cameras were angled more towards us as we were more central than what is shown here. Despite less room being needed for this shoot, we kept the background the same for consistency between shoots. The edges of this set were supported by poles resting on the floor (the cloth on the floor was not supported by poles), and was suspended from behind. Later in the week we added a third light suspended above the poles to provide back lighting, but this was not present on the first day of filming. The lights shown in this picture were also present on the first day, with them being in the same places on our shoot, pointing towards us in the middle. I was present on the left side of the camera, and Adam on the right, with our own individual cameras pointed directly at us for close-ups. My own rendition of this can be seen below from a bird's eye perspective.
As you can see, Camera A would be the Master Shot, capturing both of us. Ordinarily, Camera B would capture Adam and Camera C would capture me, but we changed this over due to a joke where I would look away from the main camera and towards a camera on my side to say "Quite" to the camera. Every other shoot involved setting up the cameras to look over to the other side to provide the close-up shots.
The cameras used were three Sony XDCAM's at 24fps with a SanDisk 32GB Memory Card in each of them.
Another Ufilms member assisted to hold the boom mic while another gave us direction. When this was finished, Adam took the footage and began to edit it. The second episode was also recorded on this day, which Adam went to go and help on, so I finished the editing and ended up staying back until late at night waiting for it to render, export and be uploaded. Fortunately, it was uploaded about half an hour before the deadline, and I was very dedicated to staying back to help make sure this project was finished well and on time, but I was not on set and did not operate any equipment on this first day.
Day 1 videos:
The Ufilms Oscars Rundown: February 23rd 2017 -
On this day I was on set for the filming of the Ufilms Oscars Predictions video. I was one of the camera operators, with my camera focusing on a close-up shot of Kane. It was on the left side of the master shot camera looking over the middle of the set (which was the same as the drawing above, but with a TV in place of the mannequin). This allowed us to have better shots of the people on either side of the master shot. The cameras and lights were set up as shown below:
The camera I was on was Camera B. It was the same camera as before. 1, 2 and 3 refer to the lights, with light 3 being suspended above the rig. Following the director (Taylor Henderson), the cameras were pointed where required. I set it up by extending the tripod, mounting the camera on it with a tripod plate and pointing it in the direction of Kane, making sure that Kane was the main focus of the shot, with some of the set in but without looking untidy.
You can also see that there is a light suspended above the set in this picture, which was added later on to add more lighting. Fortunately, for the day 1 video it was shot in black and white and was unnoticeable, but this was added to our floor and lighting plans to make it a little bit easier on the eyes. These pictures aren't the exact floor and lighting plans, as they were drawn on paper, but they are accurate representations, although they didn't change much to make the plan standardised across shoots.
This camera was operated solely by me, as the other cameras were operated solely by the camera operators assigned to operate those cameras individually. A director was also involved in looking at the shot before filming to ensure that it was a shot that accurately portrayed what was desired to be shown on the screen. Ordinarily in a shoot like this, a floor manager would be used to make sure timing are fine before a live audience, but as this was not live and was not before an audience, we used a regular director with a clap board to make sure timings and syncing were correct to help with the editing stages of it, rather than having a regular floor manager who would make sure everything was cut to at the proper times. All the regular roles of the floor manager were managed by the director, however.
I did work as the Director on a shoot starring another student, Jess Bramfitt, but there are no pictures to evidence this. I made sure to let people know when to start, and used to clap board to ensure that there was syncing up to make sure that everything was filmed on time and ready for editing, as well as making sure people were aware when things had gone wrong, including getting lines wrong, going out of shot or the boom pole falling into a shot at any point. I also was in charge of managing the boom pole and, by extension, boom mic for another shoot involving Matthew Taylor and Danniella Cooper involving discussion about Oscars Make-Up. Once again, I have no evidence in the pictures as I seem to be unable to find them, but this shoot went on for an almost uninterrupted hour, which I had to hold the boom mic for. I did this without complaint or making noise, and as little movement as possible to make sure the shoot was completed to a professional and quality standard, as I always tried to do on any other instances on set where I operated a camera. I did what I was asked to make sure there was no interruptions.
You can also see that there is a light suspended above the set in this picture, which was added later on to add more lighting. Fortunately, for the day 1 video it was shot in black and white and was unnoticeable, but this was added to our floor and lighting plans to make it a little bit easier on the eyes. These pictures aren't the exact floor and lighting plans, as they were drawn on paper, but they are accurate representations, although they didn't change much to make the plan standardised across shoots.
This camera was operated solely by me, as the other cameras were operated solely by the camera operators assigned to operate those cameras individually. A director was also involved in looking at the shot before filming to ensure that it was a shot that accurately portrayed what was desired to be shown on the screen. Ordinarily in a shoot like this, a floor manager would be used to make sure timing are fine before a live audience, but as this was not live and was not before an audience, we used a regular director with a clap board to make sure timings and syncing were correct to help with the editing stages of it, rather than having a regular floor manager who would make sure everything was cut to at the proper times. All the regular roles of the floor manager were managed by the director, however.
I did work as the Director on a shoot starring another student, Jess Bramfitt, but there are no pictures to evidence this. I made sure to let people know when to start, and used to clap board to ensure that there was syncing up to make sure that everything was filmed on time and ready for editing, as well as making sure people were aware when things had gone wrong, including getting lines wrong, going out of shot or the boom pole falling into a shot at any point. I also was in charge of managing the boom pole and, by extension, boom mic for another shoot involving Matthew Taylor and Danniella Cooper involving discussion about Oscars Make-Up. Once again, I have no evidence in the pictures as I seem to be unable to find them, but this shoot went on for an almost uninterrupted hour, which I had to hold the boom mic for. I did this without complaint or making noise, and as little movement as possible to make sure the shoot was completed to a professional and quality standard, as I always tried to do on any other instances on set where I operated a camera. I did what I was asked to make sure there was no interruptions.
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