https://drive.google.com/open?id=1863EjMhVLYNUsrO9JgzpsSvR2S3o8V2s
Group Live Task Reflective Essay:
For the live group task, I was the director of the VT with a small crew. For this project I was in charge of deciding where to shoot the VT, what to shoot for the VT and which members of the cast and crew to use. Firstly I decided we needed to get multiple interviews of the main cast members performing in the theatre performance, Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience or Bunthorne’s Bride. Half of the production filmed the live performance, whilst my team conducted interviews with the director of the production and the main cast members.
The reason I chose to interview the main actors and the director was because I felt the three main actors playing Patience, Archibald and Bunthorne, would give the best responses for the questions, to use on the DVD. I also chose to also interview the director as it is a major performance and I felt she would have a lot to say about how well rehearsals are going and how she feels the live performances will run.
Upon reflection I believe I made the correct choice in choosing these people as they did give good answers, everything we needed for the VT and they made it incredibly easy on the day as they already felt comfortable on camera. Being comfortable in front of camera is an outcome I had not thought about before. Therefore for the next interview project I will take this into consideration in the planning stage.
I also decided it would be more effective to film these interviews at a rehearsal as I felt this would give the best responses. It also meant we could get some cut away footage of the actors practising their lines, and performing in a more relaxed environment, taking direction would look good on camera seeming more natural.
After filming we decided that the location chosen worked well for the actual interviews in terms of ease and comfort of the actors, usability and space. However, the actual aesthetics were not as appealing as we had anticipated. I had hoped for a more aesthetically pleasing backdrop for the interviews, or at the very least multiple locations around the rehearsal space. This was unfortunately not possible and in fact we only had access to one room within the building, so to combat this I wanted to try and move the camera setup a full three hundred and sixty degrees using as much of the room as possible. This was to give the illusion of being in more than one location. This was a slight issue as each time we turned the camera it required the full lighting kit to also move and be re-adjusted which took more time than planned. The outcome of this did not work as well as I had hoped, but it did mean that in the final edit we had what seems like three variations of location which is what I intended.
Overall, I felt that the VT went smoothly and without any major issues other than a lack of locations for the interviews. We also completed the project to the brief within the allotted time scale using team work and preparation. I believe that because we prepared all the correct documents such as booking forms and risk assessments with plenty of time spare. This prior planning meant that on the day we could start filming immediately. In future I understand the value of preparation including storyboarding, notes, questions and backup questions for the actors and the director meant we were prepared for any eventuality.