Documentary: the shooting process

During the shooting week, our idea about the film has shifted from just asking to people in Farnham if they had something to get out of their chest, to ask them as well what makes them happy (I got the inspiration from “Chronicle of a summer” where they ask to people in the street if they are happy).

Then we even decided to put a self-reflection about our documentary and the making process in the film. 

We have done it by showing ourselves during the shooting, during our conversations about the making of the project, and by interviewing our self as well. 

To create a bigger sense of community in the film, we even decided to ask to people and to ourselves questions about Farnham, like “you like Farnham”, “what you like and what you don’t like about it”. 

We divided the shooting in five days. 

_ On the first day we went to shoot in the big car park near the Gostrey Meadow Park. We chose that place because is kind of quiet, far from the main roads but there are still people walking by. 

We then realized that the first interviews that we shoot, had no sound recorded. We then decided to put this into the movie, because was part of the process of our documentary experience.

Then we filmed in our class in the University, a conversation we had between us (our group), about the making of our film, to use it as a self-reflection.

Actually during the shooting our roles have been mixed, because we all (apart from Aaron) did some interviews and we shared to one time each, the sound engineer role.

 _ The second day we have filmed in the Gostrey Meadow park in Farnham,  to make some interviews in a more relaxed environment, like a park. We were happy about the people’s  reactions and opinions in the interviews. It has been quite easy to find people available to be interviewed.

 _ The third day was a nice sunny day, perfect for the shooting.
We have chosen a pretty street, with a nice background, like Castle street to make some interviews.

Then we even interviewed the owner of the flower shop at the corner of the same street.Then we went in the Oxfam charity shop in East street, where we interviewed a clerk lady and a customer of the shop. The interview with the clerk lady is my favorite by the way.

 _The fourth day we did some shooting near the St. Andrews church, because of the nice and calm location.

We even did some self-reflection interviews in our group. This time, we were one at the time in front of the camera.

 _And on the last day we did some more interviews in that narrow walking street, that goes from the Waitrose supermarket  to Castle street, passing in front of the “Hop Blossom” pub. The background with the old wall was quite interesting. 

Then we did some interviews in the back of the Waitrose building, which I disagreed with, because I didn’t like the background.