The 2nd filming session was in Herne Bay with the KRG. We arrived before training started and met with Jocomotion and Roxy Rink Rash to discuss more about what we were filming. I was really ill for this shoot but felt the most confident in speaking to the girls and getting our message across to them about what we wanted to film, especially as i had thoroughly researched the game and felt like i knew it like i know football. After a couple of edits to the script we were ready to go. When we first saw the space i was very happy as there was a higher up section where we would be able to film our commentary bit from. Danny, Chris and myself then had a little problem due to the fact Chris was uncertain if having the package in the middle of the live segment would work as how would people know what roller derby is about if they have never seen it before and felt having it at the start would be the best option. I mentioned to him that the only problem with this is that it is a lot of pressure on Jamie to speak live, unedited without the use of the prompter for about 1 minute 30 when he has only really had the full script today. Most of our set up is him interviewing the girls so the promter wasn't something we could use as he could keep looking back to the camera as we wanted it to be like a causal chat scenario. i wasn't sure if it was fair to him to have this extra pressure on getting it right in 1 full sweep. Jamie is naturally funny and for this to come across we need him to be relaxed and not stressed and although both Chris and Danny had confidence in his ability to deliver under pressure ultimately when we spoke to Jamie he said he much preferred splitting the live segment in 2. So that is what we did. I completely agreed with chris's point that if someone completely knew to the sport was seeing this then they might not understand it and it probably would have worked better reworking it but i think we were all more than happy with having this option as a sort of safety net.
This discussion however wasted a fair bit of time and as Danny pointed out a few times we were missing a lot of good stuff we could be filming. On reflection i think it might have been a better idea for everyone to be on the same wavelength when it came to this scenario. I had written the script taking into consideration both of these options but felt it would be easier and more manageable to film 2 shorter live pieces than 1 longer one. I don't think it was the right place to have this discussion and rightly so Danny was quick to encourage everyone back into the right focus and shake off this little set back.
We were all a little tense after this but soon enough our 1st interviewee came across, so i introduced myself and began prepping her the interview. I always enjoy this part of filming the most as i feel my strength is my people skills and hopefully relaxing each interviewee down enough so they appear natural and confident on camera. I also use this time to try and get any interesting information from them that we could quickly incorporate. Lady killer or Mollie was up first. She was a drama student so said she felt confident to help us get the answers we wanted and when i spoke with her she came across very likeable and funny so i was happy we would get a good interview. I ran through the questions with her and mentioned that is was a live piece so we would have to go through the whole process in 1 straight clip. She was a little daunted by this but after a few more minutes both her and jamie were ready.
This was the first time i wasn't actually interviewing anyone myself so i took the canon as our 2nd camera and chris and danny asked me to shoot the reaction shots of lady killer so i got a close up and focused on that. When danny was happy with the shots me and chris had we took a take. And i was so pleased when they both did a fabulous job on the 1st time of asking. Jamie was brilliant, and Mollie's answers were great! We were all so happy that we knew we wouldn't have to do a 2nd take, plus as it is a live piece it was important to us to get it done in 1 or 2 takes to get it to be natural and true to live news as possible.
The next part was organising jamie to get some skates and gear for his little lesson. We had already mentioned to the girls that we wanted him to take part and they kindly arranged for him to borrow a helmet, pads and skates. They then sent over one of the skaters called Boot'em Khamun. I again explained to her what we wanted and that jamie would ask her about her skate name and then explain his own we had come up for him, then she would need to teach him a simple skate move and then jamie would come back to the camera to sign off. She was a little bit more nervous about this than Lady Killer but again after a few minutes both of them were ready. For this piece we used a clip mic and attached it to Jamie. Jamie asked why we didn't use the hand mic he used earlier and have him pass it to us after but i felt it might be a little unprofessional plus we wouldn't be able to hear them as they skated away from us. We also had the 2nd audio and pointed that directly at Boot'em and had Hayley follow her when she skated away to try and continue to get her audio. In hindsight it would have been easier to have 2 clip mic's but we had to work with what we had. I think on the 2nd audio will hopefully be good enough to capture anything jamie's clip mic didn't pick up.
The 1st take of this interview was a little sloppy, the answers were great but we didn't know exactly where boot 'em was going to go so we missed a bit of her movements and myself and chris weren't able to pick it up with either camera. So we did a 2nd take just to make sure we could capture everything. We were pleased with what we got the 2nd time and i made it my job to follow boot 'em with the canon while chris focused on jamie until i was out of his way. Overall i was really happy with what we got from this interview and felt jamie again really managed to capture the sort of personality our channel needs and would clearly be appealing to our target audience.
We then moved our cameras for our commentary footage, chris took the sony up to the top of the seating to look down on a game kind of like they do in all other sports, a sort of birds eye view, while myself and danny took turns with the canon being the camera rinkside, capturing all the contacts, falls and pointscoring up close and personal. This was something we had prepared for in advance and knew exactly what we wanted. I had a few shot ideas as did danny so we had our own mental shot lists and made a note to try and capture as many of the things our commentary would need. Especially footage of the blockers, jammers and passing the star.
Today was a very stressful day as again we had 2 hours to film everything and by the end of the shoot i was feeling very ill indeed. I think what i have learnt from this shoot is that you need to be prepared and have numerous chats with your team about the angle and focus of the film. we all want whats best for the film but it has to be something the presenter or actor would be willing to do so that is why prepping them and yourselves is the best strategy. Having 2 cameras on this shoot really paid off and we would never have managed it with 1 camera and i think chris would have had a breakdown as it just wouldn't have worked and we would have ran out of time. One of the problems we had with Hero Hounds was continuity in terms of we filmed over 3 days for 3 weeks in a row and this meant the children, clothes and dogs were different each time. Filming everything over 1 day was great as it has taken away a lot of those issues and also means there is a lot less footage to sift through to find the right clip. What i would do differently would be to maybe have worked with Jamie a little more on the script and given it to him a lot earlier than we did. This was my fault and i should have thought about this issue before and is something i have already sorted with fran as she currently has this script. This would have meant we could have filmed in 1 long live segment as he probably would have been able to memorise his questions and segments but i would have also had to rework the entire piece so it would be very different and as danny said we wouldn't have been able to have him stood in a helmet and skates from the beginning as it would have looked odd so that whole part would have been scrapped and this is something teacher helen said she liked about our piece.
The girls even asked me and hayley to join their squad so as i no longer play football i might just take them up on the offer.
Stay safe,
Helen
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