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Chatham's Historic Dockyard

The Historic Dockyard.

As a class, we took a visit to Chatham's Historic Dockyard to practice shooting actuality and to get a better idea of how to present information in an interesting way.
In our group, we shot a short documentary about the Dockyard using the information that we saw on the boards around the museum. We each took the role that we will be representing in the actual production, and it was good to get a feel for the role we are representing and get used to the pace at which we'll need to film.
We focused on 3 areas of the dockyard- the lifeboats, HMS Gannet, and the ropery demonstration.
We started off in the lifeboat exhibition, and this is where we spent the most of our time, as I was presenting and needed to come up with something to say. It was difficult as there was people still walking around the exhibit which was distracting and I lacked the confidence to continue with my presenting as people watched. We did have some strange encounters, however, such as a woman filming me as I practiced my lines, and an exhibit employee following us around, both of which were off-putting.
However, after the ropery demonstration we went back and I was able to break down my 'lines' which made it easier and we managed to get in the information we wanted. We found that we had spare time and so while I was setting up with mic and sound, Ebony was able to walk around and shoot GVs, which as long as we had our wild tracks I was able to edit this together.
HMS Gannet was interesting to film around as there was low light levels in the ship and there were a lot more tourists walking around that we needed to avoid getting in the shot. It was interesting to try and think of GVs for the ship as inside was quite an enclosed space however, I think the shots we got worked well and I think it made up the best part of the content we got. I felt I was able to say more about the ship as I was settled in with the presenting whereas I found the lifeboats took a while to get used to because it was the first part we tackled.
The ropery was interesting and I was able to note that for the fast-paced action, it would have been better to record the sound straight onto the camera. This is because I didn't have anything to go by to link up the sound clips to any footage. We got an interview with one person who worked at the ropery and the sound was quiet for that, so I mentioned that it was worth taking from the shoot that Esme needed to ensure the levels were hitting the right mark and to adjust accordingly.
I think considering we only filmed for 1 day with no research of the location before hand and no location recce (so we didn't know what to expect) the outcome of what we shot was impressive and we're very happy with what we managed to pull together.
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