Filming Day 2 – Train and Street Shot

By Liat Shamash

Pre-Filming…

Both battery's were fully charged and all the equipment was ready to go. We were thinking in school that it gets dark really early so we should probably film in St Albans which is 5 minutes on the train rather then 50 minutes on the train to get to town.

We received a brand new tape from the teacher and we had to blank the tape for an hour so the battery was wasted for an hour.

The schedule will still be the same but we would just have more time and be less rushed with travelling.

So Jess left school and went to get Poppy and made sure she was dressed and her make-up was done then made her way to Radlett over ground train station. Megan and I had all the equipment and got there before Jess and Poppy and got all the equipment ready, We took most of the equipment except the red light.

How we shared filming and what I filmed…

We all arrived, Poppy was ready, the equipment was ready and we started to film.

We did varied long shots, close-up shots and played around with the focus.

We all took it in turns to film our different ideas and shots. I filmed some shots of Poppy walking towards the camera and coming into focus.

I also filmed some shots of her standing still singing along standing by the yellow line.

Props, Weather and Battery’s

We played the music on Jess's phone and Poppy held it then put it in her coat.

The weather was good and helped with the effect of coldness and sadness. It was not that cold as we all had coats and were moving around a lot.

After filming for a bit we realised the battery was running out so we changed it. Then once we were basically done with doing shots of her walking back and forth towards the camera, standing still in different places on the platform, sitting down on the bench, some shots looking sad and some shots singing along we realised the second battery was starting to run out too.

So we quickly turned it off then discussed whether it was worth it to risk it and go to St Albans and do the street shot or think of something else and film it on a different day.

Deciding to take the risk…

We decided to carry on with the filming as we had to get it done and we would see how much we could get done and then sort it out if we do not have a lot of footage.

We arrived at St Albans and found the street we wanted to use. We realised the tricky thing we thought about before was a

problem, when using the tripod and trying to move the camera along with Poppy walking the camera shaked as the floor was not straight.

As we also had to work fast as we did not have a lot of battery we just did quick still shots of Poppy singing the whole song, floor shots, close-up shots also hand held shots walking in front of Poppy as we could not use the tripod as it was bumpy.

Soon later after all having a go filming the battery ran out, however we felt confident as we did get quite a bit filmed on the street but we had lots of good footage at the train and bed shots and we would get really good piano shots too.

What I filmed…

Certain shots I filmed during the street shot:- A long shot then zoom in of Poppy sitting on a

wall then walking towards the camera- I attempted the tripod/dolly walk in front of Poppy

but it was too shaky so was unsuccessful - A run through the whole song on close-up of

walking in front of Poppy hand holding the camera and her singing along.

What Went Badly?

Battery's ran out It was getting dark so might have to change story-line

a bit.The smooth tripod walk shot we wanted was not

successful so we had to hand hold camera which might not look good either

What went well?

We got a lot of footage at the train stationEven though we did not film a lot of street shots

we still have good footage at bed shot and train and we will get good shots at the piano shot so it does not matter

We all had turns and worked well together and filmed our ideas that we all had of good shots.

At this point Poppy was really strong with knowing the lyrics so lip-syncing will be good.

Final Thoughts

We would of loved to have battery to film more and experiment more but we didn't but it does not matter we still felt that filming went really well and we are happy with the footage and how well we worked together.

Me setting up equipment and filming

Trying to see if lighting would help for close-up shots and bench shot filming…

Hand holding filming