We started filming!!

Wow today was a big one. Larisa and I finally got together in person and we had a mission to film the tutorial for Larisa's ukulele TODAY. And spoiler alert, we did it. We wanted the best light possible, so we planned to begin filming at my house at 9am in the morning. Unfortunately it was overcast today, so the filming was a bit darker than planned, but what can you do?

But before we got to that point there was quite a bit of preparation I had to do. As mentioned in my last blog I had to set up all the camera equipment and test angles and lighting. I asked my friend who owns the photography equipment what she thought of my setup. She though I needed a little more light on my face which I fixed by moving the light closer. I also asked Twitter and James responded saying he thought it looked fab. So I got the green light to go ahead with that.

Then I got to work on figuring out how to create a second angle shot. I had another tripod, but this one also connected to a camera not a phone. However, I was able to borrow an attachment that is normally on my mum's bike which allows her to attach her phone to her handle bars and use it as a map. I was able to attach that to the tripod. To create the angle I wanted I sticky taped a piece of wood to the tripod so I could angle the camera on more of a downwards angle. It's funny when I write this stuff in a blog, it all seems to obvious, and I forget how much time it actually takes me to figure all these things out. After this I had to pack all the equipment away so my family could have their room back! I got up early this morning before Larisa came over to set it all back up so we could begin filming straight away.

Larisa came prepared with her snowball mic, most of her pieces pre-cut and various other things she needed to make her ukulele. And after some small camera adjustments (we decided to have the second angle camera in the fame of the first as it was the best framing we could get with the equipment we had), Larisa clapped and the filming began. And five hours later we were finished... oof. We also had a mini photoshoot for our website and played some songs together on our DYI instruments (it was super fun). During the day I was mainly doing camera work and sometimes jumping in to help glue things together. But I'm really pleased of what we managed to get done today! We work really well together and communicate extensively so I think everything is running really smoothly and I am really enjoying the whole process.

I have exams tomorrow and the day after, so I will be filming my instruments on Saturday by myself. I have spent some time perfecting my flute for the video on Saturday. Its been very tough to get it in tune, as there are so many variables and tuning needs to be very exact. I have to balance having the notes in tune and having comfortable hole placement for the fingers, and I think I have found a good middle ground. Either way, the design is super easy to make sound out of, which I think a lot of younger students especially would think is just awesome, even if it is completely out of tune.

Below are some pictures of the website with the photoshoot pictures we took today (they are super cheesy, I know, but I love it). I also wrote a first draft of the 'About Us' page tonight to procrastinate studying for my other less fun projects.