Saturday's Shoot (College Theatre)

Saturday 15th October 

Following the one hour choreography rehearsal was a one hour time slot for hair and make-up for my actresses - my actor didn't require any hair and make-up, as it wasn't convention for males to have styling in the 40s/50s.

I did both my actress' hair, as there was a very specific 1950s look I was going for.



I made sure to follow each exact step in this tutorial for continuity purposes for later shoots.

I used curling tongs to curl my actress' hair all over, and then used a lot of hairspray to keep the curls in place. The front curl was especially hard to do, and had to be physically held vertically while the hairspray dried to keep it in place. Despite the difficulties, I successfully managed to achieve the look I wanted:

My actresses did their own make-up, as this was easier for both me and them.

Once hair and make-up was done, we headed to the college. It was very difficult and stressful to stick to the time schedule, however I knew it was crucial in order to get all my shots done.

The first thing my assistant and I did was join the technician at the lights room to set up the lights. However, as it was my first time using a light board, I majorly underestimated how long setting up lighting takes and ended up losing track of time, cutting my shooting time very fine.

I knew I wanted a spotlight as I wanted to stay typical to the jazz genre. We tested out just one spotlight, however it was too bright and didn't look too good, as seen below.

Next, we tried dimming down the spotlight, however this was too dark on my actor's face, so we reached a compromise by adding a second smaller spotlight on his face.



I then saved this onto the lighting board, ready to use later. It was too late by the time I realised this was one of the biggest mistakes I had made on this project - the second spotlight was so small that every time my actor moved his head, his face would be cast in to shadow. I had organised his shots to be last on my call sheet, and by the time it was time to shoot these shots, I was very low on time and only had time for a few rushed takes.

Once my actor's lighting had been saved,  I experimented with how I wanted the lights to look once my actress joined him on stage. My assistant director helped me settle with a purple tint, as it gave a nice, warm, friendly atmosphere. It also contributed to the narrative, as the plan was for the lights to be just a plain black and white spotlight for the whole duration of the performance, and then the moment my actress joins my actor on stage, colour gets added in to the mix to represent her individuality.

Here is a clip of the sequence I used:

1) Lots of shadows as the song is about to start.

2) A second spotlight lights up my actor's face as he starts singing.

3) Purple tints for when my actress joins him on stage.

On the day, the technician gave me a walkie talkie so that I was able to easily communicate with him whenever I needed him. This proved very helpful as he was never very far away, but far enough where going to find him would have wasted a lot of time if I needed him.

Additionally, I wrote the whole song out into cue cards, just in case. Despite common opinion, they turned out to not be that useful as the song was quite fast paced, and it looked unnatural on camera for performers to be reading off of cue cards. As my shooting schedule had the whole song rearranged into chunks, my cast learnt the lyrics quickly and easily.

Once we had finished shooting in the theatre, there was one more scene to shoot - the taxi one. I was the taxi driver, and used an eyeliner pencil to accentuate my eyebrows and add facial hair. I also wore glasses, a hat and large coat to disguise my naturally feminine features.

For the shot where my actress is leaning out the window, my assistant director offered to be on camera while I drove the car. He leaned out the window of the passenger seat while my actress leaned out the window of the back seat, however speed bumps on the road meant we had to squeeze the line in in the intervals between speed bumps. This wasn't a major setback, yet it still did cause issues.

Overall, I learnt a lot from this shoot - my biggest lesson that I took away was that video shoots take a lot more time than you expect they would! The initial set up of the lights and set was what tripped me up the most.