Mill Meadow - Filming Day 1

Mill Meadow – Filming Day 1

On Tuesday the 12th of November our group had organised to make our first visit to Mill Meadow, to have a meeting with Chris Haynes. The plan was to discuss what genre of film we would create for Mill Meadow, initially the idea was to create an informational video to send to guests before they arrive at Mill Meadow showcasing how to use the facilities, however, the current plan before we arrived would be to included animation, drone shots and other cinematic shots. More about the project, when we had a meeting with Chris.

Wearing smart, casual clothing as discussed on my teams group, chat I set off at 0800, to arrive at college for 0830, however, when I arrived my team were not there, as the bus arrived late, so I grabbed a coffee from costa and wrote down some shot ideas, if we were to start some filming, whilst I waited. However, by 0845, Jack, Jed and Anna had all arrived, so we promptly set off. The journey according to our planning would take roughly 45 mins to reach Mill Meadow, but as I must drive slightly slower than average because I have a black box, it brought us closer to an hour before reaching our destination.

When we did arrive, I gave Chris a call on my phone, letting him know we were waiting in the car park and ready to meet him. While we were waiting for Chris, Jed and I talked about the plan for the day, going over the weather forecast, which was a hindrance for us, as after 1300 there was scheduled rain and clouds, which would disable our ability to film in the afternoon, the frustrating thing was the night before the met office app suggested that it was going to be sunny all day!

Before we knew it though, Chris made his way down to us with his dog, we discussed all of our proposals we sent over in an email to him, he seemed to like the idea of the animation prospect of our 4th choice plan and a modified version of our first plan, which was to show off the facilities around Mill Meadow, in a cinematic style using both drone and gimble stabilised ground shots. We were also told to capture footage of the hot tubs and kind of show how they function and what they can do, which I had prepared for in my planning, in fact, the hot tub that I researched in my preparation was precisely the same design as the ones they have at Mill Meadow, well minus the massive lock to stop bears getting in!

So our meeting with Chris was over, he gave us some keys to a loge to set up a base, which was kind of him; after this, we realised the time was 1030! We had a quick scout around the land ourselves, firstly to figure out what would look good on camera and what would not. We looked around the lake, all the lodges as well as inside the lodges to see what kind of a film and style we could create.

After our walk, I promptly set up my drone, which I am now legally allowed to fly, as the day before setting off, I took my theory drone test! Recently though, my phone has been crashing when I plug it into the drone controller, a hard restart? It does worry me as if this happens mid-flight it could be hazardous, It is something I will investigate. Anyway, after troubleshooting the setup, I took off making sure I had the rest of the team looking at my drone and making sure I was keeping away from obstacles such as trees, as it was a very windy day, possibly one of the most blustery days I have ever flown on. Some of the first shots we captured were of the lake, very low to the water, these turned out very cinematic and will look fantastic with a bar 235 crop. Next I captured some aerial shots of the whole location from around 400ft high, they also turned out stunning and with a little colour grading and sharpening they will look great, these shots do an excellent job of showing perspective I feel and showing how big a place Mill Meadow really is, I think they are a vital shot in this modern age. Next I captured a low slider shot with the drone, flying it down a lane that connects the lodges, with towering trees on either side of it, this shot did not turn out well and will need to be taken again on a less windy day, as the wind kept blowing it almost into the trees, which caused me to flick the drone out of the way resulting in some quite uneven looking footage, luckily there was no problem with the other shots we captured.

Fortunately for us, we have plans to travel to Mill Meadow on Monday the 18th of November, to begin filming the handheld shots we need at the location as well as the hot tub beauty shots. So, the landscape and trees should have roughly the same amount of leaves on, and we technically should not come across any continuity error’s in our footage as we are filming on days so close together.

Lastly we had a talk with a writer about the possibility of animating a short clip to insert a character from her novel, into the Mill Meadow film as an Easter egg, for the people who read Mill Meadow’s blog where some of the stories of this character are frequently posted, this part of the film is being created primarily to make something extra for Chris to make him pleased with our film, it will also test Dan Clark’s animation skills which is a resourceful use of his helpful skills.

After the meeting, we quickly captured a tripod still shot of a location where Dan would be able to create this 2D animation of the unique character, before swiftly heading back to college. Luckily for us the traffic was moving well, we did stop at Taunton services for a bite to eat, as we were all starving after having been shocked at the local pub prices, that were near Mill Meadow, where I think we are also capturing some footage next Monday (to show the local area). Having now eaten, we managed to get back to college by 1530 and I got home at around 1600.

When I got home, I backed up all our captured footage, formatted my SD cards and charged up the drone and camera batteries for next Monday. Overall the day was very positive, and we came away with enough footage to even make a rough edit and extra footage for Dan to start his animation! I cannot wait to go back on Monday, when the weather will be sunny again so we can begin editing this film together!