R+P Post 18: Our test shoot

Our test shoot was unfortunately not as successful as we hoped, however it did help us make many drastic but positive changes that helped us better our project.

There were many problems that we encountered during our filming:

My room, our initial filming location

• One group member down (due to exchange trip) - this was unavoidable and although we did manage to fill in for Gabriel's absence, it would have been useful to have a complete group
• Started filming late - a few travel inconveniences caused us to start around an hour later than expected. This had severe consequences later on in the day as we ran out of daylight, so for the final shots we had to switch the light on which disrupted the continuity
• Small space - the initial location we decided to film our opening sequence in was my bedroom. However, we found that the space was too tight to film in and it severely affected the quality of the shots as we could not achieve shots such as tracks or pans effectively.
• Insufficient props/cast - the main thing we decided to test in our test shoot was how well we could execute the shots and whether the storyline would work. As a result of this, we lacked the proper props and the actor that we should have had. Although this was planned, it did have a slight detrimental effect to the outcome of our test shoot as it did not turn out as good as we thought.

Despite the stressful and unsuccessful test shoot, it was a huge learning curve for us. In the week following the test shoot, we made major changes to our sequence including the storyline and location as a result of the lessons we had learned from the test shoot.