Filming the Commercial

     Today in my media class we did the filming for our commercial project. It was honestly one of my favorite days in this class. As soon as I walked in it was go time. I asked my partner Rafael for the sign out paper I asked him to hold for to me to immediately get started on getting the equipment. It was already mostly filled out so I just joined the line. My teacher gave me the camera, SD card, and tripod and I headed back for my table. At it I have the camera to Angelo so he could check that it was charged and working while I checked the tripod. I finished filling out the sign out sheet with the corresponding number on the equipment. I then told Angelo to put it in the folder by the door. After that Mrs. Marchionne gave out the filming passes and I went to get one from her quickly. I signed it out on a different sheet of paper and then went back to my table.
     Once I went back to the table we got everything we needed and headed outside. We first went to the bathroom by the upstairs media center but quickly saw there was many other students filming in that area. So after that we went to the downstairs bathroom and saw a lot of people going in. However, we decided that was where we were going to film anyways. I set up the tripod with help from Angelo and then tried screwing the camera onto the top. While doing this there was a malfunction of sorts. The screw got stuck and wouldn’t unscrew. My whole team was kinda at a loss because we were thinking we just didn’t know how to do it right. We finally decided Rafael and I would go upstairs to ask Mrs. Marchionne while we left Angelo guarding the equipment. We went upstairs and asked our teacher, she said it happens “one in a blue moon” but the screw got stuck. She fixed it with a scissor and showed us again how to properly screw it in for good measure. We then went back downstairs and put the camera on the tripod and began filming.
     The filming was really fun. I wasn’t In our shots at all but I recorded all of them. We first started filming outside the bathroom and I had to learn how to use the camera quickly. I took multiple shots of that first scene of just walking into the bathroom because playing back the footage made us realize we didn’t like what we originally planned. We just changed the direction the camera moved. I would also let my actors know when to start by saying “1, 2, 3, go.” After filming the first scene we moved into the bathroom and began to shoot the other scenes. I had to restart the tape multiple times because one of my teammates was a little nervous and messed up a little. It was my job to position the camera in over the shoulder shots correctly, so that I wouldn’t come out in any background mirror. I also showed my team members the replay of the shots I took to make sure we all agreed what we had was okay, to move into the next scene. It was my first day so I did accidentally keep pressing the record button too many times because I thought I hadn’t stopped it by pressing it the time before. I also changed the time and date on the camera since it was wrong. When it was time to go back to class I packed up the tripod with help from Angelo and carried everything back to the room. Once we got to the room I put the tripod back immediately and gave the camera to Rafael. He needed an SD card to dump the footage onto the computer so I asked our teacher for an SD reader. I had to wait on it because they were all being used but then I got one and signed it out. I gave it to Rafael and also returned it when he finished. I also told Angelo to get our sign out paper and put it in the proper folder. I also told him to get an empty sign out sheet for next class. The last thing I did was fill that out and put it away. We didn’t get to finish out filming today but will hopefully finish next class. Overall, it was a good day in media studies.