Chess Film Production: First Day of Filming

Filming for the First Time

We have just begun filming out chess films. We decided it was best to shoot the beginning of the film in order as it would not have to reuse any of those camera angles or position for the rest of the film. I had a plan of getting 8 shots in the day as we had 24 in total and only 3 days to film. This would allow me to edit the beginning portion of the film fluently without having to go through more footage.

I would be able to organize all this information in the form of the shot log. As the editor, it is my job to write down every take and shot we actually film for the day. This all goes into the shot log so that it is easier to choose specific scenes that I want to use for the final cut but also essentially puts everything that was shot into a specific order, so I don't have to guess what goes where in the final cut.

I initially believed that this would be an easy process that was just going to assist me in the harder part of editing. However, I realized that wasn't entirely the case.

What the shot log looked like after the first day of filming

Notating shots was difficult at times as the shot list we created went by scene number and then shot number for that scene specifically. That was an easy fix though as we just renumbered the shot list 1-24. However, it became awkward when we decided to add more scenes that were not part of the list. They would be filmed after already shooting consecutive shots such as 3 and 4 so we had to add a .5 to let me know where it fits in the film's timeline.

I found out that the shot log wasn't nearly as easy as I thought it was going to be. Although the document itself doesn't require anything extreme, the actual process of filling it out is a hard one. You have to make sure you capture every take your team does. If you don't, then it could set you far back in editing as you would have to reanalyze all the takes you did to see which line up to your log ad which you missed. It is also difficult to fully write a distinction between the takes you did. A shot generally had one clear description, so it was best to use the notes section and try to find a little difference in detail even if it's something in the background to help you justify the take you decide to use or distinguish two very similar takes. A messy shot log would lead to a harder time when it came to editing so I now know what to expect for the next time we shoot.