Journal entry week 9

4th to 10th March

This week was slow on the production front as I had neglected my role as producer and had not arranged any filming for the week. Due to this I decided to sit at the phone in the sports office and to organize as much as possible for next week. This resulted in setting up two events for that same day, there was a rugby match on later in the day and table tennis were having a training session that I hadn’t been aware of until I started making inquiries.

The rugby game was on just as soon as I got off the phone and I was glad I went as the participants weren’t affected by my presence, I could film in peace. They were also all wearing the University shirts and so aesthetically it worked well, it is after all a film about the University sports clubs. It was also a learning experience in capturing live action events, I had to set up where I wanted to catch the action as the camera wasn’t powerful enough to film anything on the other side of the pitch. I was also having trouble with the tripod in that I was unable to get it to pan properly from side to side. I also had to be ready when the action came to my side of the pitch as I could not ask for a redo, I had stayed in position in order to catch Nuigs’ scores which I hopefully did. I wont know until I transfer the footage onto the computer.

The other meeting I set up when working the phones was with the table tennis club which I hadn’t been able to film thus far. The club members had brought their club jerseys with them, which was good for the film. Having Nuig jerseys in front of the camera would give the film an aesthetic tone throughout, as it is it will look a bit jumbled and it may end up looking like lots of random unrecognizable people exercising. The only thing they will have in common is that they are chasing some ball or another. I am going to have to find a way of making the participants of the film seem part of a coherent whole and to this end I am considering titles. Anyway the table tennis groups were amicable and more than happy to participate and I (hopefully) got some good footage.

I have to make the responsibilities of producer part of my weekly schedule and not get too caught up in the filming aspect. I also need to prune down the footage by regularly editing what I have filmed.