One Shot- (Practicalities, Thoughts etc)

Well, all great ideas need appropriate backing in order to support them and when you are on a lowely student budget as myself and presumaly the other memebers of my filming group (who are all fine examples to humanity) it is important to ensure that even if your idea(s) are amazing, they can be supported with appriate props, settings, actors/ actresses, equipment and loctations etc.

Part of the challenge of the One-Shot project that I found (although Im still trying to edit and plan the film in my own time to add to it) was the actual organisational skills which were required to ensure the group was constantly aware of what the their individual tasks were as well as details such as location/room bookings and what times we were due to pick up the all vital equipment and start filming our magical piece of footage. (keeping in mind the set rule of not being allowed to move the tripod on which the camera was fixed to throught the whole of the clip...)

I was on the verge of a mental breakdown by the second week as I feared that my group had not met up enough amongst other things and that time was running out for us to actual shoot this film and be ready for the editing process which was just around the corner in this emphatically fast and testing three weeks. On a cold and blusterly Thursday afternoon(yes ive gone into story mode now)me and the rest of our team met together to discuss some final ideas and book some key factors such as the location for our film and the all important eqiupment that we needed to actually carry out this delicate operation.

We did just that and Mr. John (The techniction) was actually pleased with how we carried out our plans and the way in which we had a list prepared three days in advance of the day we intended to film (Monday) that we handed to him. 'Well done he said', it was like being given the Queen's blessing or something to that effect. This of course, was after we had arranged to use the TV studios in Waverly on Monday, by booking them before we approached former RAF member, John. So, Thursday essentially turned out to be the arrangement day if anything. Monday wasnt particuarly great for all five members of our group to film on but with the magic of improvisation and willingness, we managed to meet together to get the film shot and redy for editing, which was the very next day in fact!

We didnt just have to improvise in terms of when we were available to film but also the actual idea of the short film we were making as once again 'practicalities' reered its ugly head and we had to deicide what the most realistic and achievable scenerio would be. Rather than have a stituation in which a patient(camera) would be looking up from a hostpital bed at the on-looking doctors and nurses, we created a scene in which a patitent (again acting as the camera) would have a consultant style meeting with a doctor over an underlying illness which was bothering them. It would be more capable to create a doctors office setting we figured, than it would to make the scene look as if it was in a hospital with the patient (camera) looking up at doctors, nuerses and surgens, especially given the short space of time we had to gather features such as props and costumes.

The uniqueness of our idead I felt (unless some other groups have done this already) was that to try and cope with the rule of having the camera on a tripod which wasnt allowed to me moved, we made the camera out to be a real life person, and as a result, placing the viewer in the position of someone in that sitation and thus causing them to ask question such what they would do in such circumstances. This we hoped would help counter the barrier of the restrictive movement and generate some ineterest and intrigue for the viewer. An added effect of the spectator seeing things through the eyes of the character is disorientation, especailly considering that the character (camera) in our film was noticably unless and started to deteriate throught the consulation with the doctor.

Also to substitute for the lack of avaible camera movement due to the rule set in place, I thought that it was important to create a dialogue between the characters involved (in our case mainly the patient/camera and the doctor/consulation)that would be lively enough to engage with the audience and keep them interested long enough to portray the story we wanted to tell, which was patient who was deteriating throughout a consulation with their doctor. By using a first person camera shot and spontaneous, noticably dialogue as well as the adition of camera effects (which im still trying to add to the film now) we hoped that we could bipass the rule that had been handed to the us all and maintain an element of excitment and intrgue throught the three or four minutes which our clip lasted for.



Thank you for reading (if you did), right now Im very tired so goodnight!!!