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3rd Year Production Unit: Helping on another shoot part 2

I was helping out the same group on another of their shoot days, this time an interview and another test shoot which is set at a gym. The interview was with a man called Jamie Caroline, who is a former racecar driver who has won numerous awards throughout his relatively short career. He is an extremely talented driver who has many British championships in his award collection, but unfortunately hasn't been able to go to the next level of racing due to the fact that he is unable to secure any sponsors, so lacks the budget to compete. 

 The interview was set in his house, which is in Warlingham. We had to be there for 9:00am, and as I was taking the train, I was having to catch the 6:26 train. I met the rest of the group near the train station, and we arrived at his house on time. He was a really nice person who was welcoming and made us all feel relaxed. the interview was to be conducted in his bedroom, which was decorated with various awards and trophies. We had two cameras set up, the one that I was on having to focus on close-ups of Jamie's face and hand gestures while talking. The other camera was a wider shot, having the majority of his body in the frame. In order to make my camera steadier, I was using a shoulder mount, however as I didn't want to keep messing around with the zoom when changing my shot from his face to his hands, I was having to rock back and forth when changing shots. 


When we were done interviewing Jamie, we went back downstairs in order to get some footage of pictures of him racing throughout his career. The whole shoot took about an hour and a half, as Jamie needed to leave to go to an meeting at around midday. 

The next shoot on that day was at a gym in Tonbridge. This was going to be another test shoot, so that when the time came to shoot for real, we had a good idea of what the best angles, locations and lighting are. Alex, the Director for the group, was meant to be the one doing the exercise, as the documentary is about him, and he is going to be doing the workout and training for real. However, due to him feeling slightly ill from a lot of travelling the previous day, I was asked if I could do the workout. I agreed, and had quite an enjoyable time. we managed to get a lot of footage that is going to be very useful in deciding what and how to film the real shoot. 

 We filmed me on several pieces of equipment as the goal for this part of the documentary is to have a montage of training and exercise, so the more machines that we could use, the more we would have to use. 

The staff at the gym, which is called 'The Strength and Conditioning Institute' were really friendly and helpful. Even though there were only a few people in the gym while we were there, we were also careful not to disturb them as they had paid to be there, whereas we had not. 

 Overall, both the shoots went really well, and we did not have any problems with the equipment, such as batteries running out. Both of the shoots were also planned out really well, and we finished both of them in the time that we wanted. 




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