ICELAND SHORT FILM PROJECT
(PRODUCTION DAYS)
After a long night with a horrible fever I was finally feeling better, so time to do some work. The first thing I did was get all the equipment back from the people on the Snowblind shoot to check it and put all the batteries on charge as they would need everything ready again for the second night of shooting. I had to be quite stern with the crew because they weren’t really listening to m. In the end I had to shout to get everyone’s attention but it worked and made my job a lot easier. After a few hours of checking and sorting all the equipment I had time to have a break and make sure everything was ready for the night shoot. As I was feeling better I was able to finally get out on location rather than being stuck in my room with a load of equipment. At 4:00pm it was time to go. Everyone collected the equipment from my room and carried it down to the minivan. There was only enough room in the van for 8 of the crew so we went out to location with 8 of the crew and had to wait an hour and a half for the rest of the crew to turn up. I suggested to the crew to past the time we shoot a few short films. Here are the ideas we came up with
1.) 4 men wait around on a rock staring into the abyss, one of them asks the rest if they remembered to tape eastenders, they all look at each other and screamed an obscenity.
2.) A man walks over a hill looking tired and lonely, he sees a small tent walks towards it, opens it up and there’s 8 people sitting inside.
By the time we had filmed the two shorts the crew finally arrived and that when I had to get to work. My first port of call was to get all the equipment set up and make sure everyone new what they were doing. It took me around half an hour to 40 minutes to get everybody up and running equipment wise. I then spent the night moving equipment around, setting up lighting and being a runner. It was a tough shoot and a lot of time was spent shielding equipment from bad weather conditions. The shoot took around 6 hours, there were ups and downs but we got through it in the end. I then had to co-ordinate the equipment and get every one and thing in the van in as short a time as possible. The main issue I came into contact with whilst on the shoot was the weather and people not treating equipment probably. At one point there was a tripod stood in the middle on 1 foot deep snow for two hours not doing anything. Another issue was lack of communication from the crew. The jib was also left in the snow for hours and I asked one of the directors if I could take it down because I was worried it would get damaged, he said yes and I proceeded to do so. Half an hour later the other director asked for the jib and you can see where I’m going with this after that I had to get all the equipment out of the van then check it was all there and correctly stored, this process took around 40 minutes and was really testing as it was pitch black and below freezing. After all that it was time to head back to the hotel where I then had to sort all the equipment out and store it back into my bedroom ready for the next day.
Overall I thought the shoot went well. The crew really worked well as a team and in the end they got all the shots they needed. I feel I did a good job as well as I was always trying to go the extra mile when it came to everybody’s needs on the shoot. I also tried to keep moral high when things were at there lowest and I kept my cool when we encountered problems. If I were to do anything different if given the opportunity again I would make sure I kept an eye on the equipment better when in such harsh conditions and try and make sure communication is clearer. Today has been another learning curve for me in a good way as it has reinforced my belief that I work well in a team, I can work well under pressure and that I really want to make my degree into a job as I enjoyed every last minute of it. Here is one of the videos we made whilst we were waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive. Enjoy!
Thomas Barnes 