Oxford: Problems

During the trip to Oxford, whilst filming we came across a vast array of problems over the course of the trip, as we were in an unfamiliar area some problems were expected but there were many that were unforeseen and most likely couldn't be prevented, including problems with navigation,timekeeping and the equipment we brought along as well. Many of the problems that occurred were relatively quick to resolve but some managed to cause us some trouble time and again during the trip although we were able to find solutions to all of them in the end.

One of the problems that first occurred to us was that for the fluid head tripod a vital component was missing from it as it had been left behind, the part of the tripod that connected to the camera was missing so it was very unstable for us to use a camera with it, although we did eventually come up with a temporary solution by having two people operating the camera at the same time one to hold the camera and the other to operate the tripod, we also tried to tie the camera to the tripod when we filmed to make it more stable although his was very time consuming as we needed to tie the camera, then when we had finished untie the camera in order to disassemble the tripod so we could move to a new location easier, and we did this for every location we visited that required the tripod so it cost us a lot of valuable time because of the loss of one piece of the tripod, even though eventually we made it workable.

Another problem we were sure we would face was the lack of memory cards for the cameras and sure enough eventually some of the memory cards were at full capacity and we could no longer film using them, and the memory cards ran out of storage at inconvenient times such as when we were in the middle of shooting a scene or trying to capture a certain shot. However we had fortunately brought along with us more than enough spare memory cards to replace the ones that ran out of storage space, including some that were of a higher memory capacity which would make it last longer.

One of the major problems we found was overall navigation, as there was constant disputes among the group as to which direction or street our set locations were and we often had to stop and consult either a compass or map, which caused us to waste a lot of time and sometimes led us in the wrong direction, however along the way there were many areas which provided the chance for some decent footage on the way to our locations so overall the loss of direction helped in a way.

A major problem however, one which we didn't even realise until after the trip was over was a problem concerning the external boom mic. As it would turn out whilst it was in use during a vox pop interview with an employee of a record shop, during the interview the boom mic was placed near a stereo speaker  with music playing through it so after we reviewed the footage we realised that the sound of the music was drowning out and distorting the sound of the interview. We realised that this was going to cause a problem as most of the sound coming from the person being questioned is somewhat inaudible, although a problem such as this should of been expected as it was our first use of the external boom mic so handling it was a new experience for us. Although later we realised that the footage while it had distorted audio was similar to New Wave footage which used almost inaudible sound also, so we thought that the footage may have been some use after all, however the footage still didn't seem right due to the poor audio even though we found a use for it.

Overall there were a lot of problems during the trip and they caused a lot of stress and wasted a lot of time during the course of filming although we eventually managed to resolve most of them they were still nuisance wether unavoidable or not, some of the problems may have been caused by poor planning and some were spontaneous so in future these problems must be ensured not to occur again.