21 Jan 2019
Be Onsite shoot by Kayla
On Thursday 8th January, I had the pleasure of accompanying Martin and Oz on a shoot for Be Onsite. Similar to IJP, Be Onsite is a social enterprise; they provide more accessible employment for people who may otherwise struggle to do so (i.e. if they have a criminal record, disability or lack of qualifications/education).
The shoot was at the Southwark Construction Skills Centre in Elephant and Castle. First we unloaded maybe 20 bags of equipment into the room we were allocated to film in. It was important we had this specific room, because we needed to be able to control the lighting and minimise noise (e.g. air conditioning).
Next, I helped Oz, the camera op, set up a black screen they were going to use as the back drop whilst Martin, the director, set up his camera. Once we had the room set, we had to do a sound check and adjust the lighting. To do so, I had to act as their test subject by sitting in front of the camera and conduct a mock interview.
It didn’t take too long until they had worked out the levels, head room and the lighting looked good so then we began the interviews. After the first interview under our belts, I felt the next ones would go smoothly. It’s really important to be flexible with timings and think on your feet when on video shoots, for example, some of the interviewees weren’t quite ready which allowed the crew to have some down time and discuss a little bit about the current shoot and others they had worked on.
I had a good chat with the photographer on site and he gave me some useful tips and stories of the industry. One of the main things I took away from that day was ‘If you want to be a photographer… take pictures!’ Some pretty simple but solid advice which I feel could be applied to a lot. We sifted through a couple more interviews and then we had time for lunch.
It didn’t take too long after that to complete the days filming and head home. I didn’t need to help derig as Martin and Oz were coming back the next day to shoot even more interviews and b-roll. I had a lot of fun whilst having the great opportunity to work on a professional shoot.
