The weather forecast for Saturday, the day of filming, didn’t look too good, with a 100% chance of rain. I found it difficult to decide which day to start the production this week, thinking to change it to today (Sunday), however this caused some complications with the main actor (Quest), as well as rain and cloudy skies matching the sorrowful tones of the film, which had made me stick with the original planned date.

There were a few precautions I wanted to cover when it came to the equipment if it were to rain substantially; I made a rain cover for the Panasonic camera out of a strong slightly sheer plastic bag, making a hole to fit snugly around the lens to lower the possibility of the camera being soaked. Also, I had a lens hood on-hand from the Panasonic box in case I needed to stop flare or raindrops from getting onto the lens. This would allow me to film for longer, without having to constantly stop to clean the lens, the quality would be better without flare or small droplets and the camera would be protected from damage, even though it is water-resistant.

When it did come around to filming, I really wanted to keep feedback from past projects in mind for this one. I thought back to projects such as the News Show for Unit 10 when setting up each shot, ensuring they were not overexposed, which was something I ran into a lot during that production, by reviewing both the on-camera monitor and external on, checking for the actors’ skin, sky or surrounding props to not be blown-out and details could be seen. Before, I had thought the footage could be darkened in post, but not lightened very much, which had then festered into how I arranged the camera settings when I filmed, specifically with sometimes a higher than necessary ISO and wide aperture. From the experience and feedback I’ve had throughout this year, it’s now obvious to me that this is not often the way to do things when it comes to exposure. After reviewing the footage of my FMP, I am happy with my decision to pay close attention to this area of filming: