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Test Filming

Garden Test Filming 1

Here is footage of test filming in my garden. I made the decision to do test filming in my garden as my first backup-plan location due to problems with my initial location choice (as detailed in my Location Scouting section, to be added soon).

 

I am testing a few things:

  1. The light at this time of day i.e. about 6pm

  2. The audio because I am using a home-made boom mic made of a broom pole, a small recorder and my Rode VideoMicro small shotgun mic and I want to see if this works as a boom mic.

  3. I am also testing to see how audible background noise is at this time of day since my first rough test filming highlighted problems with birds, lawn mowers, dogs and people walking past on the path.

 

Some things I concluded:

  1. The boom mic arrangement seemed to work well quality wise. It was audible and clear. It would be better with a proper college boom mic and pole, but under the restricted circumstances I am pleased with it and pleased with myself for coming up with the idea.

  2. However, there was virtually no wind, so to be sure I will need to do some brief test filming in the wind too.

  3. The birds are quieter than at my previous rough test filming times of 6am, 10am and 4:30pm

  4. You could still hear a dog barking, and people walking past on the path behind my house, but I think I will just have to work round that and refilm bits as necessary. It was not as bad as my previous test filming at the other times of day, for example the traffic wasn't nearly as bad as at 6am. I was surprised it was so loud at 6am since I thought most people were working from home.

  5. I felt the light worked. I had been concerned that because it was early evening the light levels would be too dark. But even though it is cloudy I felt the light is fine. There are not lots of shadows on me and you can see me clearly against the background.

  6. I am happy with this background for when I am speaking to camera because there is some interest, not just a white background which would be boring, but it is not distracting from me, which is important since the audience need to be focusing on what I am saying.

  7. I feel this background will also work well when I put things on screen that I want to refer to whilst I am still in shot because it is neutral interest-wise and it is a fairly uniform colour.

  8. My mother, who was holding the boom mic, is too short, so the boom mic was in shot much of the time. So, I am thinking of getting a taller mother, or maybe more realistically getting her to stand on a chair. I think this will work but I will test it out again to be sure.

  9. I had used my Dad's camera because it has a flip out screen so I thought I would be able to see this screen and check that I stayed in shot and the boom mic stayed out of shot, but because I was about 1.5m away from it I couldn’t see it as clearly as I thought I could. To resolve this for the real filming, I will ask my Dad to check the screen, once I have set the shot up, and let me know if the framing stays correct regarding me and the boom mic.

  10. I wore clothes similar to those that I intend wearing in the film, ie. my usual college clothes including my usual type trilby hat. I was pleased with how the clothes looked on film. I feel they were the right style for what I am aiming at, which is quite dapper and hopefully a bit stylish. My hat didn’t appear to cast shadows on my face which I am pleased with.

 

I am pleased with how this test filming went. I learnt a lot of useful things and made helpful conclusions. I need to do some more test filming, but this is a good start.

Garden slider and woods testing

Here is footage of test filming in the woods close to my house and in my garden. This time it is more the video that I am testing. I made the decision to see if filming in the woods is possible, and to compare it to test filming in my garden as my first backup-plan location due to problems with my initial location choice of the woods (as detailed in my Location Scouting section, to be added soon). I am testing the part of filming where I film me trying camera movement and display it on the screen alongside the synched-up footage of the camera movement.

 

I am testing a few things:

  1. The light at this time of day in the woods i.e. about 4:30pm

  2. Whether it is possible to film at the bench in the woods without there being loads of people around.

  3. The light at this time of day in the garden i.e. about 6pm, after the near-by builders have gone (they started at 7am this morning)

  4. Where I could set up the camera filming me and me filming in the garden this time.

 

In the woods I set up one camera and tripod to film me filming, and I used another camera to do a handheld pan round. I didn’t take my slider track and the 2 tripods that it rests on because I thought they would take too long to set up and I wasn't even sure that I'd be able to set up one tripod and camera without there being other people around.

 

Some things I concluded:

  1. In the woods I was pleased that I was able to film at the bench in the woods without too many people coming near. It wasn't as busy as it often is. So, although I may need to go back a few times to be sure no one is there, it may be possible.

  2. I think that the lighting is OK at the bench, but I want to ask my tutor for feedback about this.

  3. I need to go back and see how long it takes to set up my slider track to check that I would have time to get all the shots that I want.

  4. I checked the other area I had thought of and that was no good, I think that is because the other area in on a path. I didn't get as far as setting up to film because there were people walking along the path every time that I thought about getting the tripod out. I concluded that I need to not use the path location.

  5. Although I may be able to film at the bench location, I think I still need to have a back-up location. I am looking again at my garden. So, I did some test footage there too.

  6. One problem that I hadn't realised with my garden, until I filmed there, is that it slopes north to south and also west to east. This means there isn’t any way to arrange my equipment to shoot horizontally.

  7. I tried putting my slider on a slope too. I'm not totally happy with it but it may be OK, so I want to ask my tutor for feedback about whether it is OK.

  8. I think the light is OK at this time, about 6pm, again I want to ask my tutor for feedback.

  9. I think that is the only place that I can position in my garden otherwise there are either lots of things that I can’t move in shot that are distracting, like the garage, which is pretty run down. And for shooting at 6pm in my garden I think this is the best place for the sun too, since I don’t want to shoot into the sun.

 

I learnt a lot from this test filming, there are still some things that I need to test out but I am making progress.

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