1. Did you enjoy the main workshop shoot day? What role(s) did you take and what did you learn? What were your best bits and why?

Our director of photography: Jack

The main workshop day was easily the most useful and enjoyable day of the project. Everyone had gathered in the studio by 8am and by the time we had finished shooting it was close to 8pm, meaning the shoot day had lasted a whole twelve hours.

Our director: Dom

Therefore it was useful as experience for a real working day in the industry. During this time, when I wasn't performing, I was able to talk to our director and director of photography to further my understanding about their roles.

I was able to learn the
fundamentals of a variety of tasks

As we were shooting footage for three versions of the band, there were many times in which I had time to help out with the set. This ranged from acting as a cable-basher or dolly grip to more menial tasks like managing the clapper board and acting as a runner for the staff or students who were performing. Not only did my participation in these roles help to improve the speed and ease of the shoot, but it also allowed me to witness all of the tasks which were necessary for the shoot.

Our performance coach: Jasmine

When it came to the performance, I quickly realised that it requires a lot more thought rather than strumming in time to the music. Talking to our performance coach, Jasmine, made me realise that the best performance requires the whole band to look natural and professional. This means that we all had to be comfortable with the roles we were playing and also interact with eachother, rather than focusing solely on our own performance. With this mindset, our performance was much more enjoyable and we were able to get some pretty difficult shots quite quickly.

I enjoyed the entirety of the shoot day, but I have to admit that the performance was much more enjoyable than I had expected at the start of the project. However, it was still very useful to balance the time performing with technical work, as well as time spent talking to the staff and runners.
Not everyone in our class felt comfortable with the performance, but thankfully all of us in our group were very committed, which resulted in some footage which looked brilliant in the final edit: