4th shoot.

To our advantage, it did not rain today! We are done with our outdoor shoot. It feels great to not have to re-do a shoot and to complete it in one attempt!

I had a great time taking shots of the little ones in the park. The best part was that I did not have to ask them before taking their footage as I had to during the interviews :P. 

However, there were a number of problems that I did face during the shoot. 

Firstly, it was a really difficult task covering the sports such as football. As the camera had to move with the people playing football, I was unable to take a smooth and static shot of them. So, after a while, the people who were playing football formed a circle and started passing the ball to each other. That was comparatively easy for me to capture and so, I was successful in recording them during the game.

Secondly, it was really hard to stop people from coming in front of the camera. People unconsciously passed right through the camera the moment whenever I was taking a shot of something, due to which I had to take the same shots all over again. But, there were many who were very corporative. A lot of adults who were jogging waited for my shot to completely first and then passed by, which was really sweet of them.

Thirdly, of course, the mosquito problem. As the time between 5-6 pm is the time of sunset, a lot of mosquitoes attacked me during the shoot. And so when I came back home, all the exposed parts of my body had a mark of a mosquito bite on it. 

Other than these few dilemmas, I had no issue with the shoot. I like the shots on the computer and I am satisfied with today's shoot. 

Below is a video of me during the shoot. The video is not made properly as my maid was my only helper there and she did the best she could taking a shot of me. I’m very thankful to her for being the only support for me at that time.

4th shoot planning (2)

Unfortunately, we were not able to do our outdoor shoot today due to weather. We were all set with the equipment and had a schedule for the shoot which we were following strictly but, 30 minutes before we were supposed to leave for the park, it started raining. However, we still waited for the rain to stop but it went on and on for hours, so due to the poor weather condition we had to cancel our shoot for today. We have planned to do it tomorrow, if the weather allows us to do so.

- Praying for a dry weather tomorrow.

4th shoot planning.

We will be working on our outdoor shot, tomorrow. The outdoor shot will be based on recording children doing physical gaming. The recce for the shoot is Askari 11 (where I live). There is a huge ground in the locality which is filled with children in between 4:45 to 6 pm. We will be taking candid shots of children playing different games in the park. This footage will be part of the opening sequence of the documentary, where we show some 'outdoor activities'.

- Looking forward to a great shoot.

3rd shoot.

AND WE ARE BACK!

After the previous disappointments that we had I can FINALLY say that i am satisfied with our shoot today! Yes, the interviews are done. We are glad that one of the main parts of the documentary is completed.

Xinhua Mall was a different experience. The kind of people in this Mall were different than those we met in Mall of Lahore. The reason why I am saying this is that they were very cooperative. They showed a lot of enthusiasm in the documentary and gave really good interviews. Some even complimented us on our topic which felt great as we now know that our topic is something that people would be interested in knowing more about it.

The shop managers were very nice to us. We did not face must difficulty in convincing the shop managers to let us shoot inside. Although we got two to three rejections but this figure is not match for that we got in Mall of Lahore. The interviews are taken on a standard level and the lights are alright. The sound quality is nice and so is the quality of the footage.

However, we had to take permission from the owner of the Mall first. This issue did not arise at Mall of Lahore, as there was no one to stop us. The minute we took out our camera we were attacked by a security who simply refused to let us shoot. Then we asked him to guide us to the manager’s so that we could ask him to permit us to take some shots. The manager first listened to the documentary topic anf the institution we belonged too. Then after a 4 to 5 seconds silence he agreed to let us shoot in the mall. *Phew*

Secondly, the Mall was not much filled with people. We had to wait for a few minutes for more customers to come in. The place was not crowded. But I take as a plus point because too many people are hard to stop from coming in front of the camera.

We did not forget to take pictures this time! These are a few pictures and videos of us during the shoot. Thankfully, provided with a helper (Sabaina’s cook) this time who took all these pictures and made videos of us.

I’m satisfied with today’s shoot and I am glad that we are one step closer towards the competition of our documentary. Hope the interviews looks good in the documentary as well.





Sabaina and I, recording an interview



Me explaining the concept of the documentary to her for the interview




Sabaina recording an interview

3rd day of shoot planning.

Tomorrow, we are going to try to re-take all the interviews. This time we have changed our location to Xinhua Mall, as previously we took shots at Mall of Lahore. Reason being that we do not want to keep our recces limited to just one place. It’ll be better for us to experiment new places as who knows we might find our target audience there in a large number.

This time we are prepared. We have decided to take interviews in shops so that we get the right quality of sound without any disruptions from the surroundings. 

Secondly, we are going to take shots with a DSLR camera. We think that the quality matters a lot and there’s a huge difference between the resolutions of a DSLR than that obtained from a digital camera. Thirdly, we will make sure that we take shots that we take mid shots of all the interviewees.

Considering that the previous interviews were not consistent as some captured too much of the background whereas some had little background being showcased in the interviews. 

Fourth, we will NOT forget to take our pictures during the shoot. We know how important this is for our project and so taking pictures of ourselves will be one of the priorities. 

Furthermore, the fact that Sabaina and I were a bit nervous about asking completely random people to give interviews for us as it was our first time. Now, that we have already been gone through this phase we have gained a lot of exposure so none of us is nervous about this part of the interviews.

-Excited for tomorrow!

2nd shoot.

We are back from the shoot. What an tiring day it was! The shoot was not that bad but it was not perfect either.

We, again, had a lot of problems during the shoot. As this was our first time ever, running behind people and convincing them to give interviews, it was very hectic and time consuming.

So, first of all we had difficulties in finding the people who would actually give an interview after listening to details of our documentary. A lot of people used to first agree to give interviews but later after they had found out that the interview was going to be taken on a video camera they simply refused to give an interview. Either because they were ‘shy’ or they did not have the permission from their parents or husbands to appear on camera. In some cases, a few ladies listened to the concept with great interest and showed a lot of enthusiasm. They then asked us to wait for 10 minutes so that they could do some work of theirs and promised to return for the interview. We waited for them for more than 20 minutes and later we realized that they ditched us :/ this wasted a lot of time and energy of ours!

As we had to run after people at different areas of the mall, it took a lot of time for us to set the camera again and again at different locations for every new interview. We had to carry the load of the tripod at almost all the floors of the mall which was very enervating.

Moreover, Sound was the biggest problem! In the mall the walls are construed in a way that they echoed the sounds due to which we heard a lot of noise in the interviews. There was loud music and hundreds of people talking because of which the voice of our interviewee was lost in between all those sounds. We could not place the camera at a short distance from the interviewee either as the camera would not have been able to a take a mid-close up of the interviewee while giving the interview.

In order to escape from the hundreds of different sounds dominating the entire mall, we decided to go take interviews in different shops. However, the shop managers refused to let us shoot in the shops as they were not permitted to let people take pictures or make videos. Finally, to our advantage, we located two to three shops that allowed to take interviews inside. They were very nice to us and even agreed on switching off the music so that we could easily record the voices of the interviewees.

Lights were also a big issue. Every shop and corner of the Mall had different types of lights due to which the lights in the interviews we recorded could be seen at varying levels. However, interviews are supposed to be completely natural without any make up. These interviews are recorded this way due to which these lights should not be an issue.

Later on, after we saw the videos on the computer we realized that we were so much caught up in finding people and explaining to them the whole concept behind the documentary, we forgot to take shots that were of equal level. Some shots covered a lot area of the surroundings whereas, the others were mid close up shots which covered comparatively lesser area, which disrupted the flow and the cohesiveness of the clips when played in one order.

However, after experiencing all these problems we have learned a lot. We are now aware of all the possible problems we could face during the interviews and we will try our best to eliminate all these problem as much as we can the next time we take interviews at some other location. I think of all these dilemmas as lessons. We have learned our lesson and now we are prepared to take the kind of interviews we are aiming for.

I’m afraid I have no pictures to post here. Honestly, we were so busy in taking interviews that we completely forgot to take our pictures or make videos. But I think we could be excused considering the number of problems we faced during our visit to the mall.

-Enthusiastic about the second ‘batch’ of interviews.

2nd day of shoot planning.

As Dawood and Ibrahim are busy for few days. We have decided to take interviews of our audience in the meantime. We will be going for the interviews tomorrow at Mall Of Lahore; reason being that we will be able to find a lot of people under one roof which will save us the hassle of finding the right kind of people for the interview and the fact that every segment visits that mall and so we are hoping not to face much difficulty in locating our target audience. The interviews will be shot via a digital camera and in the end the interviewee will be asked for their opinion on the topic in one word i.e. yes, no or maybe, which will be showcased on different colored chart papers.

Following are the questions we will be asking the interviewees:

Q. In your opinion, have children these days shifted from outdoor activities to those of indoor activities?

Q. If yes, what could be the reason for this change in preferences?

-Hope tomorrow’s shoot goes well!