Long-Take Shoot

The idea of the long take shoot is completely contrary to the normal process of filmmaking that I am used to. In all of my experience in amateur filmmaking, usually the camera is setup, we run the dialogue once or twice, then film it and refilm it again and again until we get it right. This time we did not have that luxury, as our instructions dictated that we film only once as we could not edit our film. Consequentially, the aspects of preproduction such as camera setup and blocking were of key importance in this shoot. In a way, I suppose that it is more like a professional Hollywood shoot than anything I have previously done. In a professional shoot, film must be conserved in order to keep costs down. Likewise, here we had to have everything perfect.

After looking at some of the other groups’ videos and participating in another group’s shoot, I regret not having any camera movements in our group’s video. However, considering the constraints we were under, the issue is minimized. The Bolex is an ingenious piece of equipment: a completely mechanical camera. That being said, it’s a pain in the ass to load. I would have to have an assistant or become better acquainted with the camera before ever using it again. Developing the film immediately after filming was great and relatively easy; I believe we got a decent amount of contrast on our filmstrip. The whole process of planning, shooting, and developing our film in just under 4 hours was very interesting. I look forward to editing the film in Final Cut.