This shoot was the ultimate in lightweight production. Consisting of a crew of three and a cast of two, we must have appeared to be a set of kids messing around a pond to any outsider watching in. For what the production needed this was more than acheivable, but not confortable by any means. A couple of extra hands would have been most beneficial at times, regardless we did it, and quite successfully to add to that note.
The place was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but somehow still managed to get dog walkers and joggers coming now and again. This always occurred at the most inconvenient of times given the fact that we only had specific times to shoot thanks to the weather. As i had already foreseen in the reccy, the typical British weather was true to its reputation. One second it would be beaming with glorious sunshine, then suddenly give way for winds and rain showers. Not the best environment for continuity and light control.
Besides those various issues, we managed to squeeze the time out of the overcast weather to complete the shoot, although a little over schedule, the actors did really well putting up with the wait for weather and other issues regarding props. James managed to somehow direct and operate the boom while recording, too many jobs for one man, but he pulled it off so hats off to him for that.
Working with james on the Fish Food shoot was a solid reminder that his direction is upmost professional, and provides an additional boost of confidence to succeed in my role through that trust. The place in terms of cinematography was pretty much all self art directed. Lighting was only as controllable as waiting for the right amount of cloud cover, which I held to throughout the day to ensure the best possible continuity of the footage. I went with the 50mm lens to try cutting out as much of the sky as possible. Although something i have started to notice with the depth of the 50mm is it has a tendency to make the subject look like a studio green screen composite. When in an external situation, the depth is so shallow that the background pretty much blurs into a solid texture at times, specifically when the surrounding area is all grass and trees. This is not an issue at this time but something to consider when selecting lenses.
