Dance Video Group Meeting 5

On Friday 24th March we had a meeting as a group to discuss a few final issues which needed resolving before we got to our shoot week. Me and Sugini spoke to Katherine via phone as she had unfortunately been too unwell to attend this week. Here are the main points which we discussed:

Firstly We had some Equipment issues which needed sorting out. We had the wrong Samurai Blade for the camera so found out we needed to swap this for a Sony Ninja. We also realised we needed to book a clapper board so we could label each shot and take properly. We also needed a to add a riser plate to our equipment list as this was missing meaning e would not be able to use the slider or steady cam properly. We wrote this all down so that we could visit the Equipment store straight after and change this all so it was correct.

We then discussed crew and roles. The roles we had originally assigned to people had changed as we found some were better at other things in pre-light and some of them didn't feel comfortable in certain roles. We had also brought new crew member on as we found from pre-light we needed people with certain skills to help us so we could have a more effective shoot. Here is a run down of who we now have as crew, their roles and their availability:
Ollie - Gaffa (Tuesday 9 till 12)
Nicole - Gaffa (Tuesday and Wednesday)
Chloe - Runner/Clapper/Camera Assistant if needed (Tuesday and Wednesday)
Maisie - Camera Assistant (Tuesday and Wednesday)
Ethan - Camera Operator (Tuesday and Wednesday)
Rufaro  - Runner/Camera Assistant if needed (Tuesday and Wednesday)
Savina - Runner/Backstage Photographer (Find Out Schedule)

This then led us onto our next issues which was that we were meant to film across Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday however most our crew were not able to make Thursday as they all had a scheduled lesson this day or work of their own to do. Originally when they agreed they did not realise this however it was still an issue. We have decided we will have to film across two longer days now instead rather than 3 shorter days. This will be more intense but its our only option and if we take regular breaks and stay motivated I think it will work fine. As a back up we will review footage on Wednesday at the end of shooting and if we feel we need an extra day then we have decided we will film Thursday with a much smaller crew and just call the Dancer in for a shorter amount of time just to film some extra shots we need.

We then moved on to discuss Makeup and costume as it has been strongly advised that we use both in our piece to enhance the themes. We have a makeup artist coming in to do her makeup so this is a photo of the kind of thing we have decided we like and want own our dancer:

We then began brainstorming ideas for costumes. We had a lot of contemporary ideas like using materials such as mesh and netting etc but we needed to refine each costume idea so that it said something about the themes of the piece. We eventually settled on the colour grey as a base because black is too dark and white messes with the exposure on the camera. We want grey leggings and a grey vest top of t-shirt which we can then style and add to for each costume. For Archnophbia we have settled on the idea of a hair piece/fascinator made of netting/mesh which will slightly cover her face. These you can buy which will be easy to get hold of. We also are thinking of adding black lines onto the grey fabric with fabric pens to represent spiders legs. For Claustrophobia we are keeping the same grey basis but this time we are tying black ribbon around her body and limbs in certain places that won't actually effect her but will add to this idea of entrapment. We then for Astraphobia want the grey base but something brighter to represent the bright bold lightning. We are thinking to get some bright yellow ribbons and clip them into her hair and around her waist so they flow behind her as she moves making it more visually exciting. Here are some really basic and rubbish sketches I made while we spoke about it:

Katherine has agreed that she will go and source all these items this weekend for the costumes so that we can get them ready for Tuesday.

Lastly we just worked out a plan of action leading up to our shoot. This weekend I am going to as Director translate all the choreography into a Dance script so the Sugini as DOP can use this to inform her of certain sections of dance for each shot she has on her shot list. Then once the shortlist is finalised by Sugini with the Dance descriptions in place I can use these two teams to help me direct effectively on set. Then before the shoot we are going to have one final group meeting in which we will just double check and go over everything to make sure we are all happy and then put together a shoot schedule between all of us which we can then distribute before shooting so people know the timings etc of the day and we can keep ourselves on track.