Risk Assesment

Following below is our risk assessment, where we answer the problems that we may have had and how we prepared for them before the shoot.

Assessing the location – The way we went about making sure that our location was available to use was to phone up Starbucks and ask permission to film in advance. This meant that if they denied us access then we could ask another coffee shop. Luckily they agreed and gave us permission and informed us of what their least busy day is. This would hopefully allow us to get the seats that we would prefer to film. We also planned backup seating location however should our ideal seats become occupied and unavailable. On arrival to Starbucks on shooting day, our ideal seats were taken. We decided that we would wait for them to become free. This gave us time to set up our gear, talk to the staff about getting filmed and to discuss shots between group members. An hour and a coffee and half each later the seats were still unavailable. We decided to resort to our backup seating. We ended up finding that the backup seating provided nicer framing, allowing us to use the railings to frame the scenes. It also tied in nicely with the song title and lyrics due to being located directly in front of a window, so obviously including a windowsill.

Actors/Actresses – We had learnt from our mistakes last year and decided to come up with a set of substitutes in the event that one or more actor/actress was unavailable, ill or otherwise preoccupied. We considered many candidates and the main issue that cropped up was getting a real couple, who looked naturally comfortable together and would mind kissing when necessary. There was also another issue that we facing, this being that we needed to find a couple that didn’t look too young. Due to time restrictions the only couple suitable we could find within that notice that fulfilled the previous stated requirements was Connor and his girlfriend Zarina Rogalla.
They stepped into Fran and Ralphs place. A majority of the shots from the rough cut we kept the same just re-filmed with the new actors (I remained as ‘The New Guy’).

Equipment Failure – We are highly reliant on the equipment we are using, mainly the camera. The worst thing that could happen whilst filming would be a camera error of some sort, for example; battery, memory, technical and/or damage. We made sure to take all these possible failures into consideration. One way we made sure that these errors wouldn’t happen was by carrying a battery charger with us at all times and a spare fully charged battery. To deal with the memory issue we carried a box of spare memory cards. This meant that if we ran out of room on one card we could replace it with a fresh card. To cover us in the unlikely event that something was to go wrong with the camera (i.e. accidental damage) we had my Nikon D90 camera with us at every shoot on standby just in case. Although as not high quality as Connors D700 it would still be able to produce high quality video.

 Camera man – We had to take into consideration of all possible errors. We made sure that there would be a secondary camera man at all shoots, whether it was Connor, Cameron or myself. This meant that we could have someone recording behind the scenes, or even someone to talk to about technical issues and camera settings (aperture, shutter speed, ISO, lens choice). This proved to be a very good risk assessment as we had to activate our substitutes for actors and actresses it meant that Connor was unable to film a majority of the narrative. In these cases we used one of our backup camera men to take over.

Weather – We had to take in consideration what the weather might be like on the day of the shoot, as unfortunately the weather can never be definite. We began filming when the weather was a nice, clear day with sun and few clouds. However, whilst filming through the day the weather ook a turn for the worst, as it began to rain. To try and help us avoid being caught off guard we checked the weather schedules, which stated that it was going to be a clear day with the chance of overcast later. We deemed this to be good conditions, as the clouds would add a natural soft box, creating soft light for the shots. However, halfway through shooting when the rain began, this would have ruined our filming, but we took it in our stride and made it work for us. Filming outside when it was nice weather and shooting inside Starbucks when the rain was too heavy. Luckily we filmed most of the present shots in the dry and when it came to the memories we managed to shoot them out in the rain making it look as if it was two different days.