In this day, we had to shoot 2 restaurants on Sydney road at 12pm and returned the gears before 5.30 pm. It was quite tough because we not only had to reach the tight schedule but also carrying all heavy gears around. However, we tried to finish this day as much as we could.
Royal Stacks Restaurant
Due to the dead pixels problem of RMIT Canon 5D, we have decided to change our plan a little bit. We used the 5D as the 1st camera and captured master shot of our talent because if it didn’t move, then our editors were able to cover those red dots by using photoshop in post production. At the same time, I had resposibility for the Canon 70D which was used as 2nd camera to shoot all B-roll footages.
Suggestions from Editors
I was quite nervous because I didn’t feel confident about doing tracking shots and close up shots without using tripod as my hands were quite shaken. I had to reshoot a few times when the actress was going to the counter and ordered her burger. However, I did try my best to overcome this weakness by applying what theories I learned through previous workshops and courses. I remembered my lecturers recommended me to hold the camera closer to my body as much as I could in order to make it more stable.
Doing close up shot at Royal Stacks
In order to increase the sharpness of footages, I tried to research to learn more about how to improve camera focus while shooting. I have known that I should zoom out at max on the object to check wether it’s clear or not (https://photographylife.com/how-to-quickly-test-your-dslr-for-autofocus-issues). I did double check the focus of every shots before recording and I think that I have done a better job than yesterday.
Moreover, this location was quite bright because all the walls are made from glasses so the footages were overexposed when I did some test shots at the beginning. Therefore, I chose to decrease camera sensor (ISO) as well as keep aperture as small numbers to reduce the brightness. It was quite hard for me to change those numbers all the time because I had to shoot many different corners in this restaurant which have different light conditions.
Besides that, there were a scene that I needed to shoot while the waitress serverd the burger. I only had one chance to capture that moment so it was quite stressful cause I couldn’t control the movement of her as I wanted. Thus, I would suggest we discussed our shooting plan with them before recording to have a better result.
Tiba’s Lebanese Restaurant
We ended up here because other restaurants that we chose before were closed. This restaurant was quite dark inside although it was around 3pm at that time.
Our shooting was delayed approximately 30 minutes due to the lack of battery. Although we fully charged them last night but we didn’t have any back up ones for the 70D camera which belongs to our director. We only had extra batteries for the 5D. As a result, it effected on our shooting plan when the light were changed so I suggested to move to another table. The light condition was better but it still didn’t have enough light. We were planing to increase the brightness by using both camera functions (ISO, apertures) as well as editing process.
Before the change
After the change
Again, we had another serving scene but the waitress came out when I just finished all of settings for my camera. Thus, I couldn’t shoot that shot perfectly and there were crew members in the frame at that time. In order to cover this problem, we planned to zoom in the frame when we edit our videos.
Crew member was in the frame
The last issue we encountered was the lack of memory cards of 1st camera. Therefore, the final scene we will need to use footage from 2nd camera instead. This problem happened because we forgot to delete all the footages we have done yesterday after transferring datas.
In conclusion, I think that we will have to face with some big disadvantages during our post production stage. For the future project, I suggest we should have location tests before real shoot to avoid those problems such as overexposure, darkness, movement planning. We also need to nominate one person to double check all the gears again before every shooting day.
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