Filming the Commercial

During my AICE Media Studies class, we filmed our commerical. My role in filming consisted of being one of the camerawomen and directing. I also did any voiceovers we might want to put in the commerical. Before we started filming I made a check list of all the takes we need, so we wouldn't forget anything. I didn't want to waste anytime trying to figure out what to film next. Having the check list was very helpful. I had a lot of fun during the filming process; however, it is a lot of hard work. There were a few things I forgot about before filming. Like, there would be other people filming around me and that there would be another class on the track field. I just did my best to work around the other people. I tried to have only the actresses in shot and while it didn't always happen, I think the filming went well.

On our first day of filming, on October 23, the group went out to the track field at our school to set up. I helped with getting the camera and the tripod set up. After I made sure the camera had full battery and was working the filming began. I started off by letting my group know about the checklist I made. Everyone looked over it and decided the best way and time to film everything on the list. It was decided that we should film in the same order of the commerical and do any voiceovers last. As one of the camerawomen, I made sure I took a few takes of everything we wanted to film, so I would have good footage for the commercial. I also made sure we had takes from many angles and shots, so we could choose what looked best when editing. As the director, I told the actresses what to do during the takes, like when to start running. I made sure to get their opinions on what should happen in the takes. While I was the main director, everyone else did help co-director, so we would have a commercial we would all be proud of. As one of the voice actresses, I did any of the voiceovers that we might want to include in our commerical. After we finished filming for the day, I dumped all the footage onto a computer.

Our next day of filming, today, my group went over the footage we got a few days ago. I wanted to do this, so I could see what we needed to film before the end of class. I wrote down a list of the scenes we should redo, and any scenes we were missing. After planning, my group and I headed to the track field. I checked to make sure the camera and tripod worked and then I set them up for filming. I went over the new list one more time with my group and then started filming. We didn't have a lot of scenes to film today since we did most of it on our first day of filming. I still had the same roles as before. I directed the actresses with the help of the entire group. I filmed whatever I needed for the commerical with the help of the other camerawoman. Also, I redid any of the voiceover lines that I was assigned to do. I made sure that we had enough footage to do our commerical, then we went back inside. I dumped the new footage onto the computer. Overall, filming the commercial was a great experience. I learned about how much hard work and planning has to go into filming to make sure you have a good final product.