Question Six

Joshua Liam Whincup

Evaluation – Question 6

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt an incredible amount of information on technology by experiencing with working with the equipment on set. However before shooting we had to complete a equipment check to assure we had everything we needed to portray our narrative to the best of our ability.

The equipment used within shooting:

Camera bag

My Canon XHAI camera

Battery

Tripod

Tape

Clapperboard

Chalk

Lens cap

Luckily our set was not far from where we picked up our equipment, so after packing everything away and making one hundred percent sure we had everything and several batteries and tapes we carried all equipment to our shooting location. Our cast and crew was assigned roles to assure we could focus on every aspect of our film, Jesse Anim was in charge of camera, Abigal Fajobi was in charge of continuity and I was assigned as director of the project and film. We only needed one character for the opening sequence and that was our main character, ‘Nikki’ who was played by Deborah Oyelade. When arriving on set Jesse set up everything involving camera, Abigal did the same with continuity and Deborah set up sound and I as the role of director just went through everything making sure everything was set up correctly.  

Making sure equipment was safe and set up properly.

Libec S322 Tripod

Using the tripod we firstly had to unzip the bag and remove everything needed to set up the tripod from the bag and lay it out in front of us. Holding the tripod in a upright stance we unclipped the hock connecting all the bottom legs. After making sure that was taken of correctly and hocked onto one of the legs so after shooting it would be easy to put the tripod away, we pulled the tripod in the three directions of its legs. We made sure all legs were touching the floor before unlocking each lower leg and pulling upwards to the top. After doing this the tripod was standing on its own and was spread out as far as possible. Then we unlocked the higher part of the legs and adapted the tripods height to fit perfectly with our camera man’s eye line.

Canon XHAI Camera

We unzipped the camera bag and unclipped the clip that was holding the camera in place within the bag. After that I took the camera, holding it tightly with my right hand in the correct way. I placed the camera onto the floor and removed the lens cap. After doing this two of us put the camera onto the tripod, sliding it into position and securing it correctly. However we had a problem, the tripod had suffered some vandalism of some kind and lacked the correct button to properly secure the camera properly to the tripod. Due to all the tripods being used on the day it was impossible to receive another one within time to shoot successfully. So we contacted our teacher and they assisted us in securing the camera to the tripod with several layers of duck tape to assure it doesn’t move.

 Then we needed to check the spirit level, we needed to sort the sprit level so the camera would be level meaning the shots would be correctly upright and in position with the frame. The handle just right of the tripod had to be unscrewed and then adapted to be level and fit the camera’s eye line, after completing this we just simply tightened the handle.

 I removed the battery from the camera bag and put it into the back end of the camera, I then put the tape into the side of the camera, and making sure it was it was in perfectly so we could record all our shots without any problems. I released the view finder and turned the camera setting to [A] which is the best setting for shooting time of this calibre because it automatically focuses. 

Sound checks

• LDR lead was in the correct socket.
• Camera – Correct setting.
• Boom was set up correctly and the sound was being picked up from the microphone attached to it and not the microphone attached to the camera.