Daniel Orr A2 Media: Documentaries: Filming Diary

In order to keep track of what we were filming and when, we decided to make a filming diary that we would fill in every time that we filmed something. This way, we would be able to document each filming session which would allow us to make note of exactly what was done and whether it was done well or not; with reasons. We also occasionally took photos when filming.

Tuesday, 18th October
Our first day of filming was in Culcheth, a large village in Warrington. We decided that this was a suitable place to film as there are many takeaway restaurants located nearby to each other, which would make tasks such as filming restaurants for cutaway shots easy, quick, and practical. Furthermore, two of our group members live in Culcheth and therefore had links with people working in local takeaway restaurants as well as a general knowledge of the area: this would allow us to make the best use of our time by filming a lot of varied footage in a short time without wasting time. We met at around midday as we wanted to get our outdoor filming done in daylight whilst not having too much time to spare afterwards, as we were aware that we could not order a takeaway to film until 5:30pm. Unfortunately the weather for mainly rainy on this day, which had a negative impact on some shots as well as when and where we could film due to us not being able to put any electrical equipment out in the rain. We did bring an umbrella to help shield the camera when possible but it was still not ideal.

Due to the rain we could only film in well sheltered places to avoid any damage to the equipment or interruptions to our shots or interviews - the umbrella that we brought provided some slight cover but it was still not reliable to risk.

We filmed various shots of takeaway restaurants in the area including; The Raj, Thai Paragon, The Village Pizza and a local fish and chips shop. We tried to get shots of different types of takeaways as we want to provide a balanced, unbiased view. These shots were for cutaway shots, and were filmed in a variety on different camera angles such as panning shots, zooming shots and long shots to show variation and give us a larger choice when editing.

We filmed a number of different takeaway restaurants from a number of different angles to provide a varied selection of footage. Generally, we filmed the signs of the restaurants such as the one seen above as we felt that these would make effective cutaways.

We then interviewed Andy Harrison, an employee at the Village Pizza. We asked him about his opinions on healthy eating, what he thinks the popularity and importance of takeaways is in modern society and also asked him to justify his statement about teenagers being the most common customers. There were however many issues with this interview; for one, the Village Pizza was not open so we could not film inside it and Andy was not on duty so he was not wearing the uniform. Due to the rain we could not film out in the open so we went into a tunnel round the side of the restaurant instead but the interview that we filmed from here did not have relevant mise-en-scéne or very good lighting. We also filmed the interview in front of a busy road which caused issues in the sound - despite Andy having a microphone attached, it was still difficult to hear him due to the unpredictability of passing vehicles. We decided to discard this interview as a result of these reasons.

The interview that we did had poor, irrelevant mise-en-scéne as well as poor lighting due to us having to relocate because of the weather. We decided that we were not going to use this interview, and that we could reschedule it at a better time if needed.

Later on at a member of the group's house we ordered a takeaway from a local Chinese, Double Luck. We filmed ourselves and friends eating the meals from various different angles, such as placing the camera over the plate as the food was consumed and low shots showing teenagers eating the takeaways in a group to represent our idea of takeaways being popular with teenagers; our target audience. We also filmed takeaway boxes - some empty - for cutaways. However, many of these shots had poor lighting or framing, and as a result we chose to discard most of this footage.

Friday, 28th October
We returned to Culcheth to re-film and film some more location shots of takeaway restaurants. The weather was better this time, so we were able to get clearer shots with better framing as we did not have to keep the camera as protected. We also filmed earlier, so the lighting in the shots was better.

The clear day meant we were able to place the camera anywhere we wanted in good daylight, resulting in clearer and overall better shots.

We then went and asked at three takeaway restaurants; The Raj, The Village Pizza and Indian Tiffin if it would be possible for us to get any interviews. While the Village Pizza could not do any interviews due to the absence of their manager and the Indian Tiffin were busy, the owner of The Raj agreed to let us come and interview him the following Tuesday.

We tried to get a variety of shots in a short amount of time to give us a large selection once we returned to edit the footage.

Saturday, 29th October

We filmed a member of the group eating a takeaway meal. The camera was simply placed above the plate with just her hands and the cutlery around the plate and she ate the meal normally - we would later speed this up for use in the opening titles of our documentary.

Sunday, 30th October

We interviewed Heather Riley - the mother of one of our group members - and asked her the following questions:

Do you think young people consider about their diet when they order a takeaway?
Do you think young people order a takeaway when they're alone, with friends or in need of a quick meal?
Why do you think teenagers choose takeaways over home cooking?

We made sure that the interview had relevant mise-en-scéne as we interviewed her in her comfort zone; her own house, with clear lighting.

Monday, 31st October

Firstly, we went down Bridge Street (the main shopping street in Warrington town centre) to film establishing location shots of takeaway restaurants such as Sizzle In, Chilli Grill and others for use as cutaways. We also shot close up shots of some takeaway signs for the same purpose. We then went into Chilli Grill (An American styled restaurant) and again filmed ourselves eating - pizzas and chips this time, as we wanted to include a variety of different food in our documentary. We filmed ourselves eating the food using high angle shots, close ups and panning shots. After asking for permission we also filmed the signs inside the restaurant and filmed footage of an employee serving us.

We made sure that we were allowed to film in certain places before we did so, asking permission from nearby restaurants etc.

We filmed many low angle shots of takeaway signs to use as cutaways.

Afterwards I took the camera home and interviewed my mother. I asked the same questions that we asked Heather and again set up relevant mise-en-scéne by interviewing her in the kitchen with good lightning which related to the topic of food.

Tuesday, 1st November

In the evening my group visited The Raj once more to do the interview that we had arranged with the owner. He was asked all of the 'interview questions' (as posted on my blog) and although the interview was slightly dark with ambient sound of Indian music, working employees and talking in the background we felt that this was relevant as it was obvious that the interview was done in a working and realistic environment and as a result we considered it successful.

Tuesday, 8th November

We filmed the vox pops interviews for our piece against the blue screen in college. We made sure that all of the necessary lights were turned on so that we could get the best possible image when we came to editing and we took more takes than usual as blue screen was something that we felt less confident about using.