It's the remix to Audition, hot and pressed off the kitchen
yesterday was the beginning of our auditions for teacher central and we both me and my cinematographer decided to test our research both into lighting a green screen and my research into different lenses.
We did however learned how to set up the green screen into the photography studio as our studio was taken up from the train station. It is held up by two stands specifically made for the green screen, so by adjusting the height of the stands so that our actors can fit in while also fitting into the frame of the camera. After fitting the roll of the screen together we had rolled it down low enough to the ground and then locked it into place by sticking two alan keys into each side so that that the green screen will not fall out and for extra safety, sand bags were placed onto the stands.
Due to the lateness of setting up auditions and the busy schedule the acting students have with their own modules, we managed to secure 5 actors (not counting jerry) for the role. Because of the flexibility of the main character and the narrator it made this easier to look more into the acting talents of the actors.
I had also decided to use the auditions as a way to use my research into lenses as way to see what lenses i prefer when it came to actual filming. Ultimately i decided to film with a 24-105mm variable lens as it was the more flexible lens to use and the 85mm and the 50mm required me to move the camera far from the green screen to get a suitable framing, while the 24-105 allowed me to zoom in manually and adjust so i could frame my shots more easier without the need of using up time.
The audition process was pretty simple, the director would ask the name and contact details for the camera and they would act out a scene chosen by the director. we did however (to test an action scene in the small space of a green screen) have isaac come in as our barbarian for each actor as that was the role he was auditioning for. however from this i had noticed many issues with filming an action scene with a small green screen. for starters its impossible to move the camera if the actor moves out of frame as then the corners of the green screen begin to show meaning we could not use the footage to key in the green screen effect.
Overall a very important day not just to cast our actors but for both me and the cinematographer to experiment what we have learnt from our research.