Day of shoot

We did our shoot today. Luckily we got all the footage we needed and it didn't rain! I met the crew at 12:30 at the meeting point I had arranged. I then organised that I would drive into the airport as it was better for safety reasons to only take one car, and also for the reason that parking is paid so no need for everyone to pay for parking. I pulled in at the first spot (the welcome sign at entrance to airport area).
We took a few shots there of an empty car park and the welcome sign, I feel like this spot is really in keeping with the theme of the piece 'Desolation at Shannon Airport'). I then drove the crew to the car park of the airport. We then walked Mark's camera gear up to get the next two shots, a pan of the estuary and a shot of the tail wing of an aircraft, which stands near entrance to car park.
From there we moved indoors, the first thing I did was make myself and the crew known to airport security. The man on security made a phone call to my contact in the airport to confirm that he was expecting us and then we were good to go.
We took various shots of the empty halls, escalator, statue and empty check-in desks. I feel that the piece will have a nod to emigration in Ireland as there are symbols of this dotted around the airport. Our contact who works in the airport then came out to say hello and we chatted with him for a bit. He suggested that we head up to the viewing area.
There, we got a great view of the runway and it's surrounds. Luckily, there was a plane on the runway which we managed to get a shot of. We got a shot of the empty viewing area, the car park and a shot of the exterior of the building before heading back to L.I.T. We uploaded the content to Mairead's machine and I copied a version onto my hard drive as back up. All-in-all I would say it was a successful day of work, we were on the shoot for 3 hours and we have plenty of footage for our piece.

Location scouting

I went up to Shannon Airport today to explore the location. I am the director on this project and I am living near Shannon Airport so I told the team that I would go there and take pictures on my way home. I have organised it with the team that we will shoot on Wednesday. Everybody is available and looking forward to the shoot. I took pictures of all the shots that I would like, and I sent them to the group chat in sequence of how I would like the piece the run, so that everyone has a clear idea for the shoot on Wednesday.

Shannon Airport

I called Shannon Airport to enquire about using the space for our project. They said it was no problem but that we need to let the security guard know when we get there. We would only need to get permission if we wanted to shoot past the security gates, but for the main space in the airport we should be fine. We are going to go out there on Tuesday to check out the location. I will then plan the shots in more detail and we will shoot on Wednesday.

Class groups

We were assigned our groups today for our first project. I am with Mark, Cecily and Mairead. I have offered to be Director on this project. Mark has kindly offered that we can use his camera for the shoot. This will greatly help us going forward and he has volunteered to be cameraman. Mairead or Cecily will be Production Manager. I set up a What'sapp group which will make it easier to communicate within the group. I had an idea to show a portrait of Shannon airport as the piece. We can show the desolation particularly. Shots of empty halls, check-in desks, empty car parks and establishing shots of the location in general - the wetlands, outside the airport etc. The piece must be between 1 minute and a minute and a half at the longest. I am looking forward to this fresh challenge and working within a group. It seems like we have a good group and everybody has plenty of ideas.

K00223369 D.V

Portrait of a location

Our class was told of our first Digital Video assignment today. I am both nervous and excited about the prospect of working in a team to create a 'Portrait of a location.' The piece of video will be maximum one minute long. We need to tell a story about a location within a one-minute time frame. There will not be any humans in any of the shots, this should make it an interesting challenge. We will use a soundtrack or pre-recorded sound on the edit to convey the feeling of the location. My initial idea is to try get into Thomond Park as I feel it would be a very visually appealing piece about rugby and rugby in Limerick/Munster. But on chatting to my fellow student it becomes apparent that we would not get permission to use the venue from Munster rugby. I feel proximity is key as we don't want to take the equipment too far away for safety reasons. Golf is another idea that pops into my head, telling the story of a golf course and the serenity that comes with it. What I would really like to do is film my dog on a beach around the West Coast of County Clare....watching the joy he gets from running around, and also hearing the sound of the ocean in the background. However, I'm not sure that this would be a feasible location in a group. I will ponder nearer locations over the weekend.