Sunday, 2 December 2012

Car Park Challenge - 'The Manual'


On Sunday morning at 9:00, the film crew for the day met and then travelled with the equipment to the Eldon building car park where we would be filming. When we got to the location we had to slightly rethink our plan, as there was a car very close to the space we had originally designated for using, which we had assumed would be completely empty as it was early on a Sunday morning. This was not too much of an issue however as there was another half of the car park that was completely free and it did not affect the original plan of where we would be filming from.

Once this was sorted and we put out the cones around the space we would be using, we began setting up the filming equipment. I started to set up the tripods and lay the SDI cables to the camera positions whilst a couple of other members filmed some close-up cutaways of the car. We needed three SDI cables for this shoot, one coming from each of the cameras to a Samurai at a central directors ‘gallery’, and one between the two cameras to synchronise the timecode. I also helped Michael place the smaller cameras within and on the exterior of the car, which would provide us with some nice shots of the presenters whilst carrying out their challenges and of the immediate area around the car. One of the cameras we used was Michael’s GoPro Hero 2 as this offered a nice wide-angle shot of the interior of the car. Seeing this camera in action has really made me want to purchase a GoPro because they open up a wide range of possibilities when filming shoots such as this or when making personal projects. Finally, I set up the boom pole with a Sennheiser ME66/K6 shotgun microphone attached, as well as a MixPre with some assistance from Barry as I was not overly confident with using it.

When filming the challenges I assumed the role of sound operator, holding the boom and monitoring the levels on the MixPre. This was beneficial for me as it is a role I do not often take, and so getting hands on with it during a shoot really increased my ability and confidence with it.


The MixPre from Sound Devices is a studio-quality two-channel, portable, stereo microphone mixer. Its impressive audio performance and comprehensive features, including pan switches, built-in slate microphone, 1 kHz tone oscillator, and headphone monitoring, make it ideal for the front end of any studio or field production system. 

MixPre Compact Field Mixer. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2, 2012, from http://www.sounddevices.com/products/mixpre/
MixPre Compact Field Mixer


The mornings filming went very well and we ended up with some very nice content and shots. I was very pleased with the presenters, as they seemed to work very well together and provided good comments that fitted in with the theme of the show. We then began to pack up all the equipment whilst several more cutaways were filmed of the car by cameras mounted around the outside in case we needed them for cutaways.

Here are some photos from the day










Barry also took some photos that may be used to publicise the show:



No comments:

Post a Comment