Acting

Today, I was asked last-minute to do a bit of acting for another team. They were really stuck so I agreed and we went down to Curragower pub and filmed there and on the waterfront.

Day of shoot

We met at Mairead's house yesterday, she had the shot list lined up. First we had tea and discussed the project. Then we started filming. I have a small part in the piece. I was filmed first, writing a 'Dear John' letter to Mark's character, Mark is the main actor, we filmed the indoor shots first, then we headed outdoors, we had a few takes of each shot. As my role for assignment 2 is sound/editing, I just kept an eye on continuity on day of shoot. I also tried to give a hand with equipment and keeping it safe etc also. One issue we encountered was that the battery of the camera didn't last long. Therefore, we had to charge it up regularly and took breaks while it was charging. Also, the SD card became full very easily so we needed to upload contents to Mairead's computer to save it as we went. At one stage, it started raining so we needed to alter the storyline to coincide with the rain. I had another small part where Mark's character thought that I was his girlfriend who had left him.... I had a small bit of acting to do also. Then we went to the train station where we got the final shots, we had a coffee and charged up the camera one last time. We headed to the platform and got shots of the train pulling away and Mark trying to stop the train. I have uploaded a copy of all the footage to my computer so now I have everything for editing and adding sound. I am undecided at this moment as to the sound, we got some good natural sound, but also the background noise audio wasn't great on the camera so I'll need to figure out how to eliminate that. All-in-all we had a successful day yesterday filming, we filmed from 12-5 and got loads of shots for me to edit with.

Brief

We just had our brief with Mairead the Director about the shoot tomorrow. I'm excited, there is a good storyboard and we have the story set in our heads now. The shoot starts tomorrow at noon in Mairead's house. Looking forward to it.

DV Assignment 2

We had our first meeting today for project 2. We had discussed various ideas previously but settled on a 'Dear John' type idea. The premise is that a woman is leaving a man. She writes a letter on the kitchen table and leaves the engagement ring. He then tries to find her and eventually heads to the bus/train station. He just misses her as she gets on the train. Some obstacles will get in his way as he tries to chase her to the train station. I think this idea will work well. We also decided on who will act, Mark will play the main role and I will play a small female role. We decided on roles for this assignment today also. Mairead is Director, Cecily is on camera, Mark is Production Manager and I will be on Sound/Editing. We have decided to meet on Wednesday to do the shoot in Mairead's house and then move on to the train station.

Director’s Report

A Portrait of a Location

‘The Desolation of Shannon Airport’

For our first assignment ‘A Portrait of a Location’, my team chose the theme ‘The Desolation of Shannon Airport’. I had the idea of doing a piece on Shannon Airport as I find the location extremely interesting. A once thriving location which is now desolate. The airport was built in 1945. In 1947 the Duty Free shop was established and it was the first shop of its kind in the world. A once bustling airport ‘gateway to Europe’, has now been replaced by empty hallways and runways.

My initial plan was to convey the emptiness of the airport in the piece by juxtaposing it with an initially busy setting. When the piece opens we will see shots of the airport, the welcome signs, a plane taking off, a list of arrivals….and then we cut to scenes of emptiness, empty arrivals area, empty hallways, empty desks etc. Hopefully, the viewer will feel at first excited but then sad, sad that a once busy happening place is now lonely and isolated.

I grew up in Shannon and so the airport has always been a big part of my life (even though I have rarely used it to go anywhere). I have always heard the planes roaring overhead. From the back of the airport you can get closer to the planes for a better view. The airport used to put on air shows for the local people. There was a buzz and an excitement about the place.

        I knew that we would have no problems filming there and would get some great shots. I made a precautionary phone call ahead just in case. I made contact with a man called Ray who was very welcoming and told me it was ‘No problem, just leave your name with security in the arrivals hall to let them know who you are.’ I did as instructed on the day of filming and he even came out to welcome us.

        My position was Director/Co-Producer, my job was to conceive and fund the assignment. I went location scouting on Friday 23rd of September and we had the shoot on Wednesday 28th of September. I believed in the location and was very excited about it. While location scouting I took lots of pictures of the various shots I wanted and shared these with my team on the What’sapp group that I set up. I showed them the sequence that we would do the shots in.

The only cost we had as a group was parking and coffee! All team mates were very obliging with their time so it was no problem scheduling shoots on the group What’sapp chat.

I met the crew on the day of the shoot 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 shot (the welcome sign at entrance to airport area).

We took a few shots there of an empty car park and the welcome sign. 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 the 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.

For our first production, Mark had his own DSLR camera, and as he was cameraman we therefore didn’t need a Production Manager on this particular shoot. So we decided as a group to divide the labour up evenly and that I would be Director, Mark was camera person, Cecily on sound and Mairead chief editor.

We all edited the piece together but Mairead kindly did the bulk of the editing on this piece. Our main editing day was yesterday the 5th of October. We had chatted as a group before about the possibility of changing the whole piece to black and white to fit in better with the theme. We tried this yesterday when editing and it worked really well so we went with this. We all sat down as a group and discussed each shot, what worked well and took out what didn’t. We shared tips and tricks on Adobe Premiere Pro also.

One issue we encountered on the whole production was that we had originally toyed with the idea of showing busy shots of the airport to counteract the desolate shots. Unfortunately, even though we went to film at the airport’s busiest time, we didn’t find enough busy shots to juxtapose it with desolation so we decided to go with pure desolation on the day of editing. Desolation was the original vision anyway so I feel that we portrayed that really well in the finished piece. I am really happy with the finished piece.

Currently, the shots we have used in the final piece are an opening shot of the Shannon Estuary, followed by a shot of the wing of an airplane, which has the writing ‘Celebrating 70 Years’, reminding the viewer that is a place with history. We then see an empty car park, lonely and empty. Then there is a tilt up to the sign at entrance to airport, I really like this shot as it has the sunlight streaming in the background and a mostly empty road. From there, we tilt down from the statue in the departure hall. In the background we see an emptiness. Another shot of the outside shows empty roads and we zoom in on the airport sign. Then there is a pan left to right of the empty arrivals hall and car rental desks with few people around. Cut to a shot of an empty escalator then empty main area of airport. The shot of the signpost with ‘Boston’ and ‘New York’ follows, for me this is a nod to emigration in Ireland. I wanted to put the sign in there as a symbol of people leaving our fair land for greener pastures. The next two shots are close ups of the empty check-in desks. We then head up to the viewing gallery. The shot where the elevator door was something we added on the day of filming, as was the shots of the empty viewing gallery. Mark suggested the elevator shot and I think it worked well so we added it to the story. The viewing gallery was something that I didn’t know existed until it was suggested to us by our contact in the airport. From the viewing gallery we got a good shot of a plane in the air and also shots of the empty gallery. We added a shot of the exit sign, which was Cecily’s suggestion on the day, also, as we felt it would be a good ending. And finally, the shot of the plane to complete the piece.

       As camera person Mark liaised with me regarding the shots that he would take. We chatted about angles, pans, zooms and tilts. He ensured that all of his equipment was fully charged and he had three batteries on the day. We only ended up using one on the three-hour shoot. We all helped Mark as much as we could with his equipment, carrying it and setting it up at each location. After the shoot we brought the camera back to L.I.T and uploaded the content. I then took a copy and stored it on my hard drive.

       As sound person Cecily shared a piece of music with the rest of the crew on the group chat, it’s called ‘Conor Walsh: The Front.’ It’s a beautiful piece but due to copyright issues we weren’t able to use it. Instead, yesterday, Cecily found a free piece of music called The Kyoto Connection on freemusicarchive.org which we used as the main music piece, then, at the start of the project, there is long grass which rustled in the wind, Cecily found a soundbyte to go with this from Felix Blume on freesounds.com.

Link to finished 1st Assignment 'A Portrait of a Location'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwxeTEhMH7k&feature=youtu.be