8th October 2019 – Planning (Pre-Production)

In order to complete large amounts of the pre-production paperwork a Recce Report of Greenfaulds High School had to be carried.  This would also help to shape the equipment which is required for filming in such a specific location like a school classroom.  The lighting kit provided by the collage is rather large and bulky and as the only real ways of traveling to the location for either me or Tommy was by public transport so it unsustainable to bring them along to filming.  From the kit booking we decided to take out the scorpion lights.   However our recce of the location showed that Mr Rodgers had his own personal LED lights and stands in the class these could be operated by batteries from the Scorpion Lighting kit as I also felt the lighting kit provided by the collage wasn’t safe to have in a classroom environment due to the bulbs heating up and the wires being a trip hazard.  This is something which could be taken into account when compiling the risk assessment of the location.  Personally the most important aspect of the location recce was to be able to meet and introduce myself to the contributors prior to filming.  As it was planned to film interviews on our opening day with both the teachers, the opportunity to meet them before was hugely beneficial they would be more relaxed when that arrives.  Mr Rodgers also gave us the opportunity to speak with a few of his classes about what would be going on within the classroom in a few weeks’ time and also hand out consent forms.  A copy of both teachers timetable was vitally gathered as prior to this it had been impossible to organise accurate Call Sheets and Shot Lists due to me being unaware of the teacher’s timetables.  An important lesson for myself who had printed out the consent forms prior to going to location was that as the vast majority of students would have to get their parents to sign their consent forms due to them being under the age of 16, it’s important to provide a cover letter to give details for the parents to inform them what would be going on and what they would be signing their children up for.  This is something prior to my visit to the school to meet with the teachers I would have never considered and when working with children in the future I’ll always make sure to have a cover letter prepared to give more in depth information to the children’s parents.