This weekend I entered a whole new world of observing behind the scenes of filming, towards a hopefully successful short film. Throughout the two days I acted as directing photographer, where I completely left my comfort zone and previous ideas of how to photograph your subject. This was both a learning curve, however a confidence boost for me, because I have not been in a situation like this before. I had to get in and among actors, and sometimes try to guide them if I wanted a certain image, although not stepping on the toes of the work that we were there to produce. The confidence came from the thrill of the actors and crew praising the imagery that I had created, and this idea of photographing imagery that presents the production team to be in action of creating their biggest piece of work so far.
The time I spent with the production team taught me more about what goes in to the imagery of a film. Where I am used to shooting a still, they have to think about all the small details for several frames per second, and in regards to this, it made me think more technically about the imagery I was creating for them. Due to the time of year that we are presented with at the moment, the cast had a lot of struggle trying to get lighting right, during the shift from daylight to dusk. This is when I noticed that my experience in the studio, however something I try to avoid, can be easily applied to this situation, so I often took control of what lighting works to create the soft natural look that we had when it was daylight. I am the sort of person who persuades myself that I can not do something, because it has previously gone wrong, however on this occasion I have proven myself wrong.
Tyler Bishop-Harris 