Filming Flat Pack Furniture Challenge

So far it is proving very difficult to organise our last film shoot for our commissioned show. This is because we need 3 of our presenters for this shoot however it is proving very difficult to find a suitable time when they are all free.

We met at 3:30 in Eldon building for our filming of the flat pack furniture challenge. As the presenters needed a variety of tools for the challenge, I brought some with me as I had some at home in a tool kit. Once everyone had arrived we started to collect our filming equipment from the storeroom and the CCi studio. There was quite a lot of equipment that we needed so it required several trips to transport it all up to the room we were filming in. This equipment included 2 cameras, tripods, sound equipment, track and dolly, 2 sets of redhead lights and the flat pack furniture that would be assembled.

We then all started to set up the equipment. I helped set up some of the lights, the track and dolly and one of the MixPre’s. Once again, I assumed the role of one of the sound operators. I used a Sennheiser ME66/K6 shotgun microphone with a MixPre and was attached to the roaming camera, which was being operated by Gareth. We had to work together along with Barry who was helping with the trailing cables, and communicate well without talking, to achieve some good shots and good audio.

The sound levels proved very difficult for me to keep steady. The presenter’s voices were quite quiet, as I couldn’t use a boom to get closer to them as it would ruin the footage. The air conditioning in the room was reasonably noticeable however we could not turn it off. Lastly, whenever the presenters would use a hammer the levels would enter the red so I had to reduce it. All of these factors made recording the sound reasonably difficult and so I had to pay close attention to what the presenters were doing and alter the levels accordingly.

Getting some of the establishing shots with the track and dolly was difficult because we couldn’t keep the presenters centre within the frame whilst moving the camera along the track sideways smoothly. We therefore decided to move the track 90 degrees so that the camera would move towards the presenters.

Tracking Issues Video

Filming the actual challenge itself took just over an hour, which was longer than I expected, and required a lot of concentration for the whole duration.

Once this was done, we filmed several shots of the presenters with their finished products and attempted some more establishing shots. We then began packing up all of the equipment, which took a fair while due to the amount we had.

Later on we spent some time deciding when we would try to film the next challenge. We decided that we were not going to film on Thursday as we were not as prepared for it as we had been for the other shoots and there were several issues with presenters availability anyway. We pencilled in a time of next Tuesday at 12-2 and I then sent texts to the presenters to see if they were available then. It has proved very difficult to organise shooting dates and not mess the presenters around too much, however this is one of the challenges in this sort of project.

Here are some photos from the day

Time-lapse video