The Last Party Shoot

Yesterday I went to London to film Manchester band The Last Party.  I am making a documentary which includes; studio performance and live performance, but I will also include cutaways of the band, which will include footage from the journey and sound check. 

I feel that the footage that I have gathered is quite good.  I have a clear understanding of variety as I have tried as many different shots and techniques as possible, although whilst travelling down I found it difficult to experiment with different shots because of the space in the mini-van.  Also some of the shots from the van are a bit shaky.  I tried to overcome this by using a fig rig, but due to the size of the fig rig it was restricting me from getting some shots.  Although the camera was shaky I feel that this added a bit of personality to the documentary, a low budget production, and added to the experience of being in the van, which could make the audience feel as if they are also in the vehicle.  We also stopped at a service station where I continued to film as I thought that they could do something which could sum up the personality of the band.  This was a good idea to keep filming becuase I have got some footage that I think will be usefull for the beginning of the film.

Once we got to the venue and the band had loaded in all their equiptment I stated shooting more footage.  I decided to capture montage shots of instruments, to use as cutaways.  Also the band were practising, restringing guiatrs and sitting about, which I feel will be good to link to songs together.  Also this shows the behind the scenes of what it's like to be in a touring band.

I used the sound check to get close ups of facial expersions and instruments, as during the live performance I wanted to keep the shot as static as possible.  These shots will give me the opportunity to split screen two pieces of footage together.  I want to really experiment whilst the band were sound checking by pulling the focus between forground and background to give the shots more depth, as I knew that this wouldnt be possible during the filming the live performance.

During the live performance I wanted to keep the shot are static possible to use as a safety shot, just incase I dont have any footage to use for cutaways.  The shot was framed so that all of the band were in shot, although the drummer was dificult to frame in shot, but I tired to make sure that I got as much cutaway footage as possible of the drummer.

To conclude, I am extremely happy with the footage that I got yesterday, and learnt a lot from the experience.  I also feel that my confidence has been boosted, as well as my camera skills whislt working indiependatly.  I look forward to editing my footage on Tuesday.