What Might Go Wrong....when you still plan ahead

As part of my task of trying to do more videos, to experiment and basically increase my knowledge in filmmaking, I offered to help a friend film a dance trailer so he could advertise himself to companies and schools so he could be hired.

I planned ahead of this, gave myself 3 weeks: 

   I booked the studio

  I sent an email to give early notice of when I shall be hiring the film equipment

 Told the friend all the details: time, day, place etc 

  Sent the same details to the friend to remind him

 Made sure I had my notes of what main scenes I was going to shoot.

 I was very well planned. The day came, after setting up, I went to pick up the friend (doing him a favour), meant that I could start the filming early with less delays if I picked him up. He didn't show up and couldn't reach him.

So the lesson is, no matter how well you plan ahead of time, sometimes things go terribly wrong, factors such as camera equipment not being available, actors/actresses don't bother showing up. Keep trying, film other things, that's what I have learnt recently after this happened to me.

Besides that, I learnt some new settings on the XD Camera and learnt that when you're going to use a high speed camera indoors, you need powerful lights such as these below...

The stands are stronger, more stable. The light heads are heavy and powerful, the light gets very very hot.

This light diffuser helps to soften the light when shooting, such as softening the shadow outlines, making the scene more aesthetically pleasing.

A sandbag may be needed to keep the light stand from wobbling.

Whenever you have equipments that need to be plugged in, shake the plug to listen for any rattles, if there is no rattle then everything is in good condition, if you hear a rattle then take a screwdriver and check if any screws are loose, if not that could cause the circuit to break.

So since I was planning ahead I did blooper trials with the lighting a week ahead just to get comfortable with the equipment. I shall post them up later. I shall also be thinking of simple ideas to make a video on, nothing longer than 2 minutes. This will be to learn more video editing and filming skills.