Problems We Encountered

Along the way we encountered a few problems with various things, eg. filming and editing. Whilst on location for filming we took the initiative to ask the permission of shop owners if it was okay to film outside their shops. Most people we asked were very cooperative and friendly and some even offered to be extras if needed. However this was not the case with everyone and with some we found we were not actually able to film outside their shops. This was slight problem which limited the area in which we could film. We also found that a lot of passers by were intrigued by what we were doing. Some would try talking to us while the camera was recording, some people walked infront of the camera, blocking the actors from view, and some even looked directly into the camera lense. This was quite frustrating as it meant we had to re-film each of the sequences where this occured. Here are a few examples of this happening:

Here a man misinterpreted our sequence to be real life.


Here a woman walks into shot, blocking our actors from view.











The camera we worked with was relatively easy to operate, however we made the simple, common mistake of pressing the 'record' button to pause when in actual fact it was already paused and so the camera began to record while we were simply standing around and talking about how to film our next shot. Then, because of this, when we then came to film our next sequence, when we pressed the 'record' button with the intentions to record, we actually paused. This again meant we had to re-film these two sequences. Another point we stumbled upon was the fact that music was playing in the street and we were worried that it might drown out our actors' dialogue. So just incase, we told our actors to speak up louder and more clearly than they normally would.

We also found problems during editing. After fearing that the background noise might be a problem, we found that it was in actual fact quite loud compared to our actors voices. However, because we had already prepared for this at the time of filming, it wasn't as bad as it could have been and so we had more or less fixed this potential problem. To make absolutely sure that our actors could be heard, we highered the audio gain slightly. Half way through editing, we found that all of our material together came to around 5 minutes in length, which is 2 minutes longer than the time it's supposed to be. In order to fix this, we went back and reviewed each of our editing choices, deciding which shots were necessary and which were not, and we had to do this whilst keeping a good flow and a steady pace, and without spoiling the continuity. Following this, after we had finished editing all of our shots together, we came to find that from one clip to another there was a change in background music playing in the street. To make this less noticable we lowered the sound levels and so then we thought it was only obvious if you were listening out for it.