Holly Probert DFSA Productions

shoot day 2: today i re-shot sav, as well as shooting tom, steve, ryan, owen, george.S and nommy, as well as asking Nommy to shoot me. we got loads done today that only thing i struggled with was recreating the same colouring live. so instead i lightly over exposed it and then i plan to edit in photoshop to achieve the same effects as i did in shoot one with all shoot two images. owen's chosen pose was very difficult to shoot. he decided to have his hand out, almost like he was going to give someone a manly hug, where you grab hands and then pull together. it was difficult to position in front of his hand which i found difficult. i showed my images to rosie and she loves the slightly yellow/golden lighting, with the silohette. i personally cant decide which ones i like best so i will probably decide during the edit. here are a couple of my images.

Shoot day one: today i did my first shoot and it went alot better than i thought because i had great help from savina and adelaide. today i shot savina, adelaide, millie, george.N and jared. this image of adelaide really stands out to me, the composition of the image is astetically pleasing to me, it shows her blurred face behind her hand which covers half her face keeping her unnamed yet still revealing some of her individuality unclearly. i love the drawn focus on her hand that i created, as it draws the attention exactly where i want it whilst still leaving more to see. however i also really like the silohette images of the hands because they are more obscure and leave the subject completely unnamed. they also look incredible as ive managed to manipulate the light sources to curve around the hand making it soft (via the use of two soft boxes), and gentle. that is the exact effect i wanted to create because the theme is around a caring and loving network of support, and so i want...

final plan: having now completed my paper work and having spoken to rosie alot about my plans and ideas i have decided to take three different sets of images. one silohette, one in front of the face and one with the hand out to one side. these all have different reasonings behind them which i will go into in the next post with the images. i want to take all 3 to see which ones work out best and how i feel they represent each person. my shoot starts tomorrow, hope it goes well!

shoot day 2: so we have literally just started shoot day two its currently 12 oclock and weve been here since 9. weve done a couple of shoots but had to take 10minutes to download footage as we didnt yesterday and the SD card became full. as far as i understand we are planning to finish shooting and having packed down ready for group A by 7/7:30 today which will involve taking down all lights, trace from the two 1K back lights, the 1K from the window needs to be taken down, the poly taken down, sky lights off and the key light off and away, thats all for lighting. as well as that we also need to remove all material from the set, completely clear. and get all the equipment ready and tidy for tomorrow. i recorded a bit on my phone to show our progress.

shoot day 1: Today has been really productive. Started the day by setting up the lights and making sure they were all correct. After that I was asked to be the clapper, which means using a clapperboard and writing each take, scene, shot and slate on, basically keeping track of what we film so it’s easier to edit. I have been doing that for the majority of the day after Anne taught me how to do it. Other than that it’s heen a bit of lighting for me but there hasn’t been much to do. Aside from that I’ve been doing smaller jobs like operating the fan or the clapper. We have got so much filmed and everyone is working a lot better today. I feel like we are all now in the swing of the production shoot, everyone is playing their part and it’s running a lot more smoothly than I thought it would. I haven’t been able to be clapper all day because I’m currently not very well and have become light headed at points so I asked Ollie to step in as he wasn’t recording sound which I’m incredibly ...

Prelight!! Today was the pre light ready to shoot on Monday. I really enjoyed today working beside Anne and learning a lot from Chris who helped me so much with the lights. We discussed the set ups and worked together to figure out most of it, he showed me how to dim the space lights and operate the 1K's with the switch board. We did a few camera tests including Anne and lorna talking us through the Samuri and Ninja software. I feel like today was really proactive. We changed the lighting slightly, as in the plans savina hadn't put in a back light, but it made the actors almost stick to the back wall, so we added two back lights with trace on to back light, and then soften it so the shadows were not as intense. I took some photos to show what it looks like finished.  

Research! Lighting research: Anthony B Richmond - “ Don't look now” brilliantly lit, whilst it's a dark story line the lighting created makes it clear that the director intends the audience to feel sympathy for the characters as they experience grief Nestor Almendros and Haskell Wexler - “Days of heaven” academy award winning film, beautifully lit and incredible cinematography, Almendros also worked on “Sophie's choice” another beautifully lit film. “In the mood for love” - Aloof lighting created, shadowy, absent yet still present lighting reflecting on the taboo relationship between the two central characters. “A space odyssey” - 2001 - Incredibly complex yet beautifully clear lighting, this film consistently stands the test of time. There's a synthetic lighting created during interior settings to create a white, solid, clear light, as well as a light tunnel during another scene. - worth looking into further. Designs: This design is good to mimic day li...

so after speaking to some people we have decided to get oatmeal colour material because if we got white it would wash out too much, however, oatmeal with the correct lighting shows up as white. Other than that everything seems to be going well. I've started my research and will be uploading it soon.

final idea? So today we had a group meeting in the library with our camera team as well as joe and Dixie. We came up with an idea about Ying and yang, showing how two opposites in a neutral environment interact and cooperate with one another and how, ultimately, they can't live without one another. So I think the idea is as follows: Synopsis: from what I understand it's about ying and yang, two actors in platonic relationship. They begin separate with a thin material between them in the space, they perform some choreographed movement, dance or over dramatic theatrical movement of some sort. They then go through various different stages showing their opposites, like "hide and seek", or "push and pull" ending up with the two together in the space moving and working in harmony showing that you need one to help the other. Set design: so what I said in a previous post about an almost heavenly type setting was correct. Joe was talking about having material d...

Brain storming: We've gone through a lot of ideas, but the main theme is about a dance piece in an almost heaven type setting, based around Yin and Yang. I think it's a lovely idea but I'm a bit worried about the aspect of choreography in regards to a dance piece as we haven't studied much about it. But joe seems incredibly confident on the idea so I trust him to make a good decision.

We decided on roles in each group, our director is Joe, producer is Suzie, and our DOP is Savina. I have got the role of gaffer, which is basically a lighting oparator. I'm really excited to have got this role as I am really interested in expanding my lighting knowledge. I'm really excited to get stuck in. The exact definition of a gaffer is: " the chief electrician in a film or television production unit." - google.  So it's my job to understand how everything works, how to create the right lighting effectively and be able to know the ins and outs of our lighting plans. 

STUDIO SHOOT: Today we were given the images for our studio shoots, the two that stuck out to me were "basement" which was a dimly lit sitting room featuring a man and a girl sitting/laying on the sofas. I loved fb soft lighting and the general homey atmosphere in the image. When the group and I looked at the images they all really liked another one by Diane Arbus which showed two older people one male and one female. They enjoyed the costume design. But overall we decided to follow a different image called "untitled" which showed two children playing hide and seek in what looks like a shed. The light coming from the window creates a lovely picturesque image which is very athstetically pleasing.