Visit To The Egg Theatre

During March, our class took an afternoon out to visit The Egg Theatre in the centre of Bath. The Egg is part of a trio of theatre's all connected to the same company. Firstly, based just round the corner from The Egg is the Theatre Royal, which is used as the main house for all large performances and then for children they have The Egg and The Ustinov which is slightly further away.

We took this visit, because the theatre had asked us if we would like to shoot a children's adaptation of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Nights Dream" so we used the afternoon not only to have a tour of the egg, but also to recce the area.



3 of our students, Balvinder, Mike and Reuben took the opportunity to film the show, whilst our lecturer would do the sound. The show went without any problems and they came out with a well shot piece.

For more information about the play, check out:
www.theatreroyal.org.uk/page_attachments/0000/1274/SHAKESPEARE_UNPLUGGED_FESTIVAL_-_PR.doc

Editing The Bath Sparkles Footage

We reviewed the production material the day after the shoot and made a number of decisions and changes. The Audio we had managed to capture was nowhere near the quality we needed and often cheering, clapping and other background noise was present over the music being played. We decided that we would source the music ourselves and cut it in time with the models and the shots.

We didn’t realise the sheer scale of the footage until we looked back through it and found we had obtained around three and a half hours footage collaboratively. Cutting this down to a five to eight minute piece was a daunting task but we decided to edit it all together rather than our own retrospective tapes. We also found that having this much footage for something that needs to be cut so quickly made it easier to find the footage we needed. Due to the amount of footage we were working with, we made the joint decision of cutting out the footage of the bands and dance sets that were used as fillers between the fashion show, and to concentrate only on the models and the clothes they were wearing.

Some of Camera 3’s shots were quite unsteady because the lack of a tripod, which we couldn’t use because we needed freedom to move, so we had to review that material carefully and a lot of the shaky shots were cut instantly.

The problems with the lights that were mentioned in the production notes also gave us some shots that were very dark and couldn’t be used at all during editing, so were cut out after reviewing.

We also used a program called Livetype to create flashy subtitles for each of the fashion designers featured in the show.

Shooting The Bath Sparkles Fashion Show

On the 19th May, our group got together to film Bath Spa's charity fashion show, "Bath Sparkles".
We arrived several hours before the start of the show, in anticipation of setting up and found that we had turned up way too early. Whilst we were waiting for the seating to be put up, it gave us a chance to check out a lot of the rehearsals, check out some of the models and have group discussions about it.

We began setting up our equipment about an hour before the show, which gave us good time to check angles and to make sure all the equipment was functioning properly and all settings were set to how we needed them.

As people began to filter into the show, we realised we hadn't really accounted for them crossing into our shots so were able to manoeuvre ourselves and the shots around them. The lighting for the show also changed dramatically at this point so we were able to adjust for it, with adequate time. We also made the decision that the music captured at the show would not be clear enough to use in the final cut, so we need not worry about it.

The shooting of the show went very well and we all managed to get a number of good shots each. The show finished in good time and it went without a hitch. At the end of the show we equipped one person with all the tapes and disassembled our equipment.

Preparing To Film Our Group Project

For our group project, myself, Chris Johnson and Reuben Bakker-Dyos decided to film the Bath Spa Charity Fashion Show, "Bath Sparkles". We decided on the name, Wrecked Productions as in WRC or Will, Reuben and Chris.

We decided between us that such a vibrant and colourful event, should be filmed from a few different angles so each of us would film from a different angle and then cut it together afterwards depending on who caught the best shots of the scene.

Myself and Reuben manned a Sony Z1 each, that were stationary and attached to tripod's, whereas Chris operated a hand-held Panasonic, which he used to shoot from several different angles and to follow the action:


We gained a client, the Producer of the fashion show, who required a copy of the uncut version for a show night with everyone who took part in the show but also asked for a copy of the final cut, for possible use in the future with the website to advertise the fashion show.

We also prepared for the shoot by watching clips of other fashion shows and looking to see exactly how they are shot. We came to the conclusion that they are very bright, and vibrant and that they often use very quick cuts to keep the pace of the action flowing. Here is a sample of one of the video's we used as research material:

Individual Project: Redefined

After a lot of consideration i decided that because i had been caught short with time and had lost some confidence in the documentary aspect of my project. I decided to can the "Bath Times" documentary and instead film a short instructional video on basic driving manoeuvre's with a target audience of someone looking to begin driving lessons or even prepare for a driving test itself.

I used multiple websites to find detailed instructions of how to perform the manoeuvre's and to obtain detailed images for use in the video. I then asked a friend who has recently passed his test and is still quite familiar with the selected manoeuvre's to perform them perfectly whilst i filmed him. This went very well and i was able to capture them on the first try almost every time. The only problem i ran into was the weather which delayed shooting until the last minute.

I then made an instructional commentary, which was used over the video and added some music to fill in the gaps.

Montage for the 60 x 60 Bath Film Challenge 2008

One of our set projects was for us to create an experimental montage of 60 seconds to comply with The 2008 Bath Film Festival Challenge, which asks us to create a 60 second film using a theme of our choice to run with some set music that can be downloaded from the official website.

The films are set to be screened on the 23rd May at Party In The City, the anniversary extravaganza and screenings will continue around the city during the festival.

For my montage i chose a theme of nature and using a Panasonic NV GS250 to capture footage from local woodland areas and then edited it using Final Cut Pro so that it ran in time and contrasted well with the music chosen.


Music: Tom Ellis - Poverty Stricken

Individual Project: Documentary

We have been set an individual project, that can either be a documentary or an instructional video thats lasts 3-5 minutes. After brainstorming several ideas i have decided to go ahead with a documentary about Bath's Heritage.

As well as decent factual knowledge i also want to concentrate on getting some impressive shots of certain places such as the Roman bath's and the pump room attached and the Bath Abbey.

Both of these historic buildings are open to the public so gaining access to the environment will be easy but using lighting will be difficult so i will have to make do with natural light.

I will also hope to gain a member of staff to interview about the buildings with some possible personal anecdotes to single it out from other historical works about bath. If i cannot get anybody to interview i may have to resort to using someone i know, reading some information from a script.

Both buildings also contain a tour and plaques containing information which i will use a source, and the Roman Baths tour even has a sound tour that you carry with you.