Production: Glass Table Shot

One of the shots filmed for our trailer was a panning shot of the character John Walters drinking a glass of whiskey through a glass table. We achieved this shot by using a pane of glass, that i had previously purchased for a past production, as the glass table. We elevated the glass to an appropriate height to allow me, the cameraman, to slide comfortable underneath with enough room for movement and for my HD camera. Two Chairs and a stack of books were used to set up the pane of glass this allowed the 'glass table' to be very easy to set up and clear away afterwards.

There was a carfeul amount of consideration that went into what props should be placed on the table and how they would be laid out. the props used were medicine bottle, fake tablets, a whiskey glass, apple juice, cigarettes, ashtray, US dollar and flour (cocaine). We chose these items because we intended to make the characters addiction and weakness known to the audience. This makes them feel sympathy towards John Walters as they see he is a damaged individual who is poisoning his life and harming his chances of ever redeeming himself.

the original idea was to have the props spread right across the table by due to the limited amount of space below the glass the only motion i was capable of was an up and down motion meaning we could achieve a pan shot if all the props were placed closer together.

I used the focus on my camera to slightly blur the props in the foreground this strengthend the image of John Walters drinking his whiskey in the background. We made this creative decision because by blurring the foreground we didn't allow the audience to dwell on all the sinful things John walters is doing in his life. Instead by strengthening the image of him in the background it reminded the audience that he is only human and that he makes mistakes.

The location for the shot was in my kitchen. We chose this location because there are fluorescent lights situated in the ceiling which lit the scene perfectly allowing all the prop details to be illuminated. it also gave us a lot of room to set up the glasss table without completely rearranging the room.