On Monday 15th January we had planned to do a pre-light on location at the gunpowder mill which would allow the camera crew to test out shots helping them amend and finalise the shot list and it would allow myself and the dancers to work through the dance on location to start planning specifically what movements would work where.
We began the shoot at 9am and had to be on location at 8am to give us an hour to set up equipment and the gazebo and amenities. However we had complication in the morning due to rain making it difficult to load up equipment in the car and then causing bad traffic making us late. This delayed us by an hour in total especially since the rain had made the location slippy and muddy and we didn't want to rush in setting up as this would cause a safety hazard. We took our time and prepared ourselves as best as we could giving the wet and cold circumstances.
We however received some news during the mornings events that Kat had managed to get a second dancer on board to be the gunpowder mill worker however the first dancer who we had rehearsed with the previous week had phoned and told us he was unable to attend today as he was very unwell suddenly. This was a major set back as this was our one chance to rehearse within location. However due to the fact that we had already completed a rehearsal with him working on some of his Army character motifs and characteristics we knew already roughly what we wanted from him. We carried on without him with myself and Katherine filling in the new Dancer Kay on what we had rehearsed and how we wanted it to work within the space.
We split into two groups during the morning and had myself, Katherine and the Dancer choreographing and rehearsing his motifs and sections of the dance while the camera crew were walking around the space working out how they would film specific sections and making notes on equipment and lenses etc. Meanwhile Colin was looking after and keeping the equipment organised under the Gazebo. Once the rain had eased off and we had completed a fair amount of choreography we then all worked together with the camera crew so they could actually try working out how they would film certain shots, particularly the trickier more challenging shots. We then had them film certain shots so we could review things and see how they looked. It was good that we all worked together because it allowed everyone to understand the dance as I explained it to them with the Dancer marking it out and then the camera team were able to work out how best to film it with everyone offering up suggestions for shots they could try and movement we could add and adjust. I felt like there were a lot of times were I led the team to try and keep things flowing as best s possible. Katherine was very busy trying to check everyone was alright, the dancer was happy and that equipment was safe etc so I try to keep things movement by opening up communication between the dancer and the crew and directing them to begin shooting and trying out certain shots while also listening to the Dancers concerns and suggestions about the dance using as much emotive language I could to get the dance to be as intense as possible.
Once we had tried out everything with this Dancer that we could I then marked out the other absent dancers parts of choreography for the camera team so that could then practice filming this and understand this in the same way they had understood the dance we had worked on today. This was a lot briefer as we didn't have the dancer here but we were still able to get a lot of experimentation an dance completed.
Katherine called it a day at 2pm as we were all very tired and cold after a long day of shooting and we had managed to achieve a lot in this time considering the weather. I felt this was a very productive day as it really helped us develop the piece and envisage what we want it to be much more.
No comments:
Post a Comment