STUDIO SHOOT EVALUATION

For the studio shoot I was Gaffer. I was fortunate enough to be given the role that I asked for. Ever since first year when we took part in a two day lighting workshop with Anne, I fell in love with lighting and how much it can impact a scene, weather it is: time of day, period, mood, or genre. I felt this was a big role to undertake but I was ready for a challenge. 

 The first day we were together as a crew was pre light, I was nervous as this was a day that I had to get all my lights up and finalise the lighting plans. This was quite a stressful day, luckily I had a lot of help from Chris and Junaid. Thankfully I had my lighting set up drawings on the board so I could have a look back at them if I was ever unsure as to what lights I wanted to use and where.

When day one of shooting began I had to ensure that all the lights were set, so the camera team could work as efficiently as possible, and we decided to order the shot list so we shot all of the same lighting in chunks, as there were three lighting changes. This helped remove any continuity issues. I feel this made the whole process a lot smoother and I was able to work efficiently to be on time with the schedule and have time for any changes the director wanted. 

I feel doing this and working closely with the camera team allowed the whole process to be a lot smoother, and there wasn't any wasted time as we were working on schedule and being efficient in our time. The levels of stress did rise sometimes when we were having to adjust a few things, but I tried to keep calm and focus on the task ahead.

I worked closely with Nina the Director and Jacob the D.O.P to ensure we were creating Nina's vision. Nina would assist Jacob and myself in what she wanted, and then we would set about working together to adapt the camera and also the lighting until it was correct. 

I feel I worked well in my role and as a crew member for group a. I ensured that I did a lot of planning and research into different lights and lighting styles to get exactly what Nina wanted, and even then, looked at colour pallets and gels to get the look and aesthetic we wanted. I made sure that I was communicating effectively with the director and camera team, so we were all on the same page and understanding level. Having good communication meant that we were on schedule and finished up on the second day of shooting with some spare time for some B roll footage. I think working under pressure taught me a lot about my work flow, and encouraged me to be more engaged in a team and bring my focus to the task. I feel that because my communication was good that I got the lighting exactly how Nina wanted and allowed enough light, even for the camera team to capture the action. Personally I think that this role helped me a lot to improve my skills working in a team, my attention to detail, my colour palett and stylw. It has also taught me a lot about different lights and what they do and how they shed light and effect the scene. I feel that this was a really enjoyable experience and that I learned a lot from my role as a gaffer. 

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.