Sunday 19th - day of the shoot.

At 10' clock we all arrived at the sion hill campus. We loaded the following equipment into the studio.

3 cameras

3 wide angle extenders

3 tripods

3 G4 laptops

3 extra long Firewire cables

One pair of headphones

2 radio mics

1 receiver

1 hard drive with 400 and 800 leads

3 DV tape

The roles of the team were

Mike - Director of Photography/lighting

Tom - Sound

Emma - Stage Manager

Adrian - camera

Roger - camera

Kev - camera

Penny - Photography/Production

Two days previously Myself, Roger, Emma and Penny had set up the studio. We used the two chairs in the MA room to create a bed. We kept the set very minimalist, using only a sheet on the bed and a wooden chair on the set. I thought that this worked well as it made it look more theatrical, almost as if it was on stage.

We all set up the cameras on the tripods and positioned them in the room. One wide angle in the centre and the other two either side of the set.

I set up the radio mics, checking the frequencies and battery power. I then plugged the microphones directly in to the wide angle camera.

We had 3 laptops on the floor, with a camera plugged in to each; this was very useful as we could all the scene from each angle.

Once the cameras were set up and the actors were ready, we rehearsed each scene. Blocking through the actors positions, which direction they would face and any camera movements.

The cameras mainly stayed in the same position all day, moving only slightly depending on the action in the scene. Some scenes involved an occasional zoom or tracking shot upwards.

I had some initial problems with the sound as the mics were rubbing against the actors clothes. I repositioned the mics but it was difficult and pretty much impossible to stop this completely. I knew that the levels could be adjusted in the editing process. During the day I had to replace the batteries as we were getting some interference. On most takes we were lucky and it happened in between lines, there was only one occasion where we had to do another take because of it. If we were to do it again I think it would be good to use a directional condenser mic as well or perhaps instead of the radio mics.

Once the scene was rehearsed we went for a take. Mike would stand in the middle; he gave the number of the take and clapped his hands. This was so we could sync all three cameras and audio in the editing stage.

Once he clapped his hands, the camera operators confirmed they were recording and the scene began. Certain members of the groups took it in turns to direct a scene. For most instances though we all had an input and discussed the direction as a group.

Most scenes went well; the actors were very good and only made a few mistakes. We did at least two takes of each scene just to make sure. We had all the filming done by 2 o’clock. So all in all, the shoot was very successful. The actors gave a good performance and the set looked very effective. As a team I thought we worked well towards the goal, with each of us having equal input.