The Shoot

The shooting day was definately a day of two halves. We started quite early and had plenty of time to set up and play around with the lighting, cameras and settings before the shoot. This was really helpful because it meant that we had solved every problem before the shoot began, which would save a lot of time when the dancers arrived.

The biggest challenge was getting the 50fps shots and the 200fps shot to match, because the slow motion footage is automatically much much darker than regular footage. We played around with the lighting and the settings on the camera until we got the two fps settings to match pretty perfectly, which I was really happy with, because I wanted the slow motion footage to add to the overall piece, not take away from it and look out of place.

Once we were all ready to go it was just a case of waiting for the dancers, which is where the problems began. My friends dancing partner was being really difficult and we soon realised we were going to be waiting an extra 2 and a half hours for them to arrive. I was really annoyed and so was my friend, but I didn't really have a choice as I did not want to reschedule the shoot and set myself back.

When they finally arrived we quickly got into the filming and I was really happy with their performance and the look of the whole thing on camera. It took an hour and a half to shoot the first routine and I was feeling really optimistic. We had all the footage I needed and had done it in a good amount of time. Then the dance partner struck again, telling us she needed to leave, even though we were of the understanding that they could both stay for aslong as we needed. I was again frustrated but there wasn't anything I could do and we agreed to arrange a second shoot for the other routine.

I have since decided that I want to find a new location for the second routine, as I don't think the first location is suitable for the music of the faster routine. I will therefore spend this week scouting a location and will then arrange the shoot, which will hopefully run a lot more smoothly.