My group decided to do our PSA over drunk driving. Our PSA would essentially be a one shot starting with a close up of a girl in front of a wrecked car and having the camera pull back until the shot is an extreme wide. We would do this two time one with the girl standing and one with her laying on the ground after the "wreck" with blue and red lights flashing to represent the police that show up to the scene. The story of the night would then be told through audio playing in the background. Our video relied heavily on editing and cutting and layering the shots in the right way; thankfully our editor is amazing and put the PSA together beautifully.
Creating The Masterpiece
Pre-Production was pretty simple. We all figured our roles out really fast due to knowing our strengthens and everyone communicating what the wanted to do, I was Director of Photography. Our director had a pretty clear vision of how he wanted the PSA to be and we all liked it so we began story boarding which wasn't hard. The hardest part of pre-production was finding our actors and figuring out a date to film. After asking maybe six people if they were able/want to be in our video we finally found two actresses for our video and a date that worked for everyone. However, the night we were supposed to film was the night the temperatures reached below freezing so we had to cancel. In class we started trying to figure out a new time to film which we successfully did but our actresses couldn't so we had to find new ones. We had actresses by the time the new date arrived but when it was time for them to come to set they were suddenly unable to. The director and I being the only ones there at the time started to brainstorm possible actors when we thought of one. Thankfully she was available but we had to rethink our idea a little. We filmed the shots of her standing and laying down individually and would edit them over in post. It was still a little cold out but was bearable and we were able to complete our filming. In post our editor just went hard on the PSA, working really hard on creating the directors vision while asking the rest of the group for advice on some aspects.
Important Life Lessons
As DP, I learned that using a different lens probably would have made the video look a little cleaner after watching it on the big screen in class. I also learned and got experience in taking a one shot video. I have yet to learn and master the steady came but hopefully in the future that will soon be conquered. Professionally I learned how to deal with problems when I have a long time to fix them and a very short amount of time to fix them. I also learned how to reach out to people to have them act in a video and becoming more comfortable with doing so. Knowing that a lot of editing would need to be done allowed us to wisely choose our filming date to where we gave our editor enough time to do a good job.
For Future Reference
A lot of what I want to do different for next time I can't really control but can prepare for. When filming mainly outdoors it's always a good idea to have a backup date in case the weather isn't working in our favor as well as having backup actors for that date. I would also change what lens I used to make it look cleaner and more professional as well as using a piece of equipment to make the shot more steady. However, I would keep the idea and concept the same because overall it turned out really well and unique. I will always remember to not be afraid to take risks and be creative.
