Summer filming

If you've been in the academy in the last few weeks you've probably seen me haunting the place, often camera in hand, plus a rather… eccentrically coloured mic. I've been filming the dramaworks courses, and very interesting it's been.

Like with most filming, AV is a mixture of long lull periods interspersed with periods of intense activity. I found a good way of filling my long breaks, when I couldn't really go anywhere: I made use of the RSAMD's many pianos and got to learning a very dificult new piece. Bad Romance will have to wait til I've cracked Gymnopedies II, sorry Murray. No. 1 one took six months and I had a teacher, let's see how this goes.

For one thing, I've learnt that while a camera is a distracting force at any time, with children you can multiply that a hundred-fold. With the younger groups I had to field many questions a day about just what I was doing, and what that furry thing on top of my camera was. I also got the unfortunate nickname "camera lady" and it seems to have stuck. Fifteen year olds called me it! I'm only three years older than you! I'm no lady! Next people will call me madam in bars.

I've also put some of the advice David Liddle gave us to good use. Rather than just keeping the camera on all the time, only capture something if it's worthwhile. Makes life in the edit suite (aka: my bedroom) a lot easier.

My lurking skills, too, have come on a lot. I got a compliment from one of the members of the Devising class on my ability to blend in. Not the best thing for a narcissist to hear but I was very happy, since the problem with filming something which isn't a performance is that you can't help but affect the process. The quantum theory of documentaries if you like. In fact, I used some of the skills I learnt back when I acted to not disturb the discussion/rehearsal/whatever.

One final thing: never, ever buy your tapes from Currys. Three for fifteen pounds. Not three packs, three tapes. Ordinary tapes, too, not gold plated and packaged in carbon fibre. It was an emergency and I needed them, but that is extortion, plain and simple.


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