Filming Diary

Sunday 23rd October 2011

We arranged to meet up in Culcheth to film an interview with a takeaway worker and some shots of the takeaways around the area. We planned to film outside The Raj and the Village Pizza. A lot of the filming we did was done in the afternoon. This was because we hoped for the natural lighting onto the outside of the takeaways would be much better in the daytime than it is in the afternoon. This also meant that we wouldn't have to wait long before we could order a takeaway delievery in the evening. However, the weather on this day was not brilliant. It rained for some of the time. This limited the amount of filming we could do. Also, we did not have a cover for our camera when it rained, so whenever our filming was interupted by the weather, we were forced to quickly put our camera away again to avoid damage to our camera. We eventually brought an umbrella and held it above the camera so that there was some filming that we could do.

We interviewed Andy Harrison, a part time takeaway worker who also fitted into our mostly teenage target audience. This meant that he has an understanding of young people's attitudes towards takeaways. We filmed him at the side of the Village Pizza takeaway. There was a roof at the side which protected our camera from getting damaged. We focused our camera at a medium close up with the camera facing upwards to demonstrate power. However, this shot is something we will not use because we decided that the mise-en-scene was too irrelevent. We felt that the lighting was too dark and that because the background of the shot was a road with cars driving past, it had no relation to our exposition. Andy was also wearing a dark red hoody because he was off duty. This too, was not relevent to our exposition.

We filmed some panning shots of takeaway signs and still close ups of takeaway menus. The menus in particular were used as a bridge for the next part of our filming: Shots of people eating chinese takeaways at a house. We wanted a variety of close up shots on different types of chinese food. Often, we used a downward tilt on the camera with an extreme close up shot. The extreme close up demonstrates the importance of the food in relation to the exposition.

Wednesday 26th October 2011

We went back to Culcheth the following Wednesday to re-film some of our shots from more than one angle. This gives us a better choice during the editing process of the shots we could use for the finished piece. Although we already had an interview arranged with the owner of The Raj takeaway, we tried to ask some of the other nearby restaurant owners if they would like to be interviewed. We asked in Village Pizza, although they were forced to decline because the owner was not present at the time. We also asked at the Indian restaurant next door to Village pizza. In this case, the owner was present, although he declined after reading our question sheet


Sunday 30th October 2011

My group filmed an interview with a mother who we plan to use as a reprentative of home cooking. We asked her the following three questions:

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

I was not able to attend this interview, but I feel as though the correct questions were asked and that there were no problems with the footage on this occasion. From watching the footage that was filmed, I observed her comments on how teenagers sometimes prefer to be social with their friends and decide get a takeaway. This is as opposed to being with their family. Personally, I do not believe that the lighting was in this shot and the mise-en-scene was not relevent. 

Tuesday 1st November 2011

On this night, we filmed an interview with the owner of The Raj indian takeaway restaurant, Anhar. We made sure that we followed the codes and conventions of documentries; more specifically documentary interviews. My group constantly thought about our mise-en-scene to try and establish that it was correct in this sense. The interview was filmed outside The Raj Takeaways's kitchen. It was clear to the audience that it was near a takeaway kitchen because of the glass windows on the doors in the background which looked inside. He answered all of the questions we asked him. 

Tuesday 8th November 2011

We re-shot some of our cutaway shots from Chilli Grill, a restaurant near the centre of Warrington Town. These were mostly various types of close up shots of the food and beverage that we bought for filming.   

Thursday 10th November 2011

We began editing our documentary despite not filming vox pops yet. We cut the questions being asked off from the interviews with the two parents and the owner of the Raj Indian restaurant. The aim of this was to simply create a rough cut of what we had got so far.

Monday 21st November 2011

We filmed five vox pops interviews. We did say that we would like to film three more vox pops interviews with females, as we interviewed four males and only one female. Unfortunately, we lost some of the footage during the capture process. The sound quality on these clips was also very quiet and if we tried to make it more audible then the amount of white noise would dramatically increase. Therefore, we thought it was best for these these vocks pops to be filmed once more.

Tuesday 22nd November 2011

We found five more people to interview as vox pops. This time, there was no problem with the capturing process or in the audio, so these were included in our documentary. Like yesterday, these interviews were filmed using a blue screen.