First Day of Filming Evalutation

December 31st 2011

On the first day of filming I used a small hand-held camera. This is due to the fact that I was filming one of the POV shot's which appears in Scene 3 and also will appear in shots towards the end of the title sequence as  a montage of events.
I filmed the full gang having a party inside a garage. Character activities include chatting to the camera (Tristy), dancing, drinking, playing pool, interacting with each other in ways such as flirting and just generally a small gathering of young people.
I recorded approx. 30 mins. of footage, all of which was one continuous shot of Tristy walking around a party. I found problems with filming the footage as the party I was recording was actually a real new year's celebration party and those who were drinking were actually drinking alcohol and find it hard to remember they are acting as characters in a film and therefore actors are seen, instead of looking into the camera as if looking at a real person, they are looking at my face whilst I hold the camera (despite instruction to look into the camera lense when interacting with the camera) so what the audience will see on screen will be non of the characters looking directly at Tristy but instead are looking over her shoulder. This makes the POV less authentic and believable.
However there are some positives about filming an authentic party as actors are acting as natural as possible with a camera in presence as they are in a comfortable setting in which they have been in most weekends. Throughout the shots I filmed the characters get progressively more drunk which means that activities I wanted film, such as kissing and dancing, are much more realistic and authentic as opposed to setting up the camera and telling my actors to dance and act natural if they weren't actually at a party and where sober. I know this as I had to cut much of the initial footage of the beginning of party as most actors where sober and were camera-shy so when I asked people to act drunk, it was either too exaggerated to be believable or the actors were not willing to participate in acting the party effectively.