Digital News: Cooking Story - Day 2 & 3 Overview - Supermarket Filming & Website Filming

How Did the Day's Filming Go?

GoPro Footage, strap to wrist

All in all, our final two days left of filming went reasonably to plan. We got plenty of footage for not only our actual news report but enough to produce another video for our website, regarding additional food recipes and how to cook them. Nonetheless, we faced a couple of changes on both days, which were:

Day 2

    - Instead of Aldi, we filmed at the supermarket Lidl instead. Despite having done research on Aldi, we knew that Lidl would be cheaper as it is known for this (we couldn't find out exactly how much everything would be online as Lidl doesn't show the prices of all the foods online). Therefore we took a gamble and went to Lidl not knowing how much everything would cost. As well as this, Lidl was a lot closer to where are main filming destination was (my colleague Sam's student house). 

    - In terms of filming, we decided to only use the GoPro camera. This is mainly because we felt having an additional camera wouldn't be entirely necessary, as we were only going to use this footage as a time lapse. We placed the GoPro in two main places when filming: We used a head strap for showing our reporter getting the ingredients, and then a wrist strap showing him putting the ingredients onto the till to pay, just so we get a bit more coverage.

GoPro Footage, strapped to head

Day 3

    - We decided to only film 3 meals, where we would then film the other 4 meals on a different date (on the Sunday instead) so that we won't have to rush around trying to film all meals in one day. This gave us more time to perfect the meals and to make sure that we got all the footage which we need.

   - We used the GoPro camera to give a POV perspective on showing the reporter cook as well as
     having the Sony as the master camera. This provided more than enough footage and will hopefully
     allow us to reduce the chance of our report looking repetitive due to only having one camera.

   - Extra scenes were shot which we thought of on the spot, as well as some being altered. For
     example, we didn't do the scene of going to Lidl as this would use up valuable time, as we would
     have to walk there and back (taking us around 45 minutes there and back). Therefore instead, we
     just done a scene of showing our reporter Dave leaving the house and going back to the house, as
     if he's just been shopping.

    - We added a graphic match showing Dave with no shopping then suddenly having shopping bags
      appear. This is purely just for fun and to experiment to see whether we prefer this or the scenes
      showing him going and returning from shopping.

    - Some of the meal's recipes were altered. For example, for the pizza we didn't have 4 eggs and
      instead only used 1. This too is to preserve time and for some meals we didn't cook the set
      ingredients and instead only cooked in some cases to serve one or two people.

    - Linking on, we decided to film only the single meal instead of enough for 4 people, purely
      because for the reason above (and to save time).

    - To make our audio more consistent, we decided to use a voice over whilst Dave was cooking.
      This was mainly so we don't get the loud sound of some food cooking in the background.
      Therefore, we filmed the audio after which will be put together when editing.

Dave and the finished meals

Who Done What?

As usual, we set each other on who will be doing what throughout the day, which you can see below:

Me: Director: Organising when/what to cook by using the schedule which I created
Kate: Camera/sound
Sam: GoPro Operator & General Assistant.

The Studio, which you can see is slightly over exposed

Were There Any Problems?

As day 2 was literally filming with a GoPro getting the shopping which we needed, we didn't face any major problems, apart from the fact that we could've got some more footage on how much it all actually costs at the end, however this isn't a major problem. Moving on, day 3 had a few problems, which were:

   - One of the tungsten lights which we hired out didn't work. This caused our studio to look 

     overexposed as we didn't have the light which broke to balance out the lighting on our set. 

     However this overexposure can be dimmed down on post production.

   - Some of the meals didn't come out the way we wanted in terms of presenting wise. For example, 

     we slightly over cooked the florentine pizza, making it not look as good as planned.

   - Some of the GoPro footage captured the other camera as well as us filming, due to it's wide angle  

     lens. However, when we edit this can switch to the master camera instead.

   - We may lack on consistency in terms of the chef hat. This is because we opened our film with him 

     wearing the hat however he took it off during some parts of the day, meaning that our film won't  

     look as consistent as it could be.

But What Went Well?

Despite these problems, some parts of the day also went very well. Such as:

   - Dave suited the narration role perfectly. We felt that he gave the story enthusiasm and generally 

     worked very well as he had an interest in it.

    - We didn't mess any of the meals up (to an extent) and they all worked as to plan. 

    - The whole film fitted perfectly for the student audience due to it being filmed in the student 

      kitchen meaning that the audience can relate to the settings as well as Dave as he used to be a 

      student.

All in all, the day's filming went to plan and I feel that we got everything we needed to get. We will be filming the rest of the meals tomorrow (Sunday) which will be uploaded to our website.

Dave just before we graphic match him with the bags