DAY ONE - 1ST FEBRUARY (Myself, Richard and Mel were present)
Today, we travelled to Dundalk Lane, Cheslyn Hay to carry out the shots required and stated in our shooting schedule. The shot we had planned to execute was a Close-Up shot of David sitting in the driving seat of his car, taken from the front of his car (on the bonnet). The purpose of the shot was to portray David on his way home from work, caught in traffic, bored and tired. We intended to show the traffic by parking our own cars in front and behind David's car and for them to turn on there lights to show it was getting late. We were going to shoot the shot through the windscreen of the car to show a close-up of David tapping on the wheel of his car, stationary.
On location, we got the original shot completed within two takes so we watched the footage back and we were pleased with the result. We then decided we could experiment as the actors were available for much more time than we had taken.
We executed more shots, including trying to incorporated a focus pull and also shooting the footage from through another cars window and onto David's car.
Overall, we felt the original shots were successful, however, if we wanted to keep the shot that included the focus pull, this may need re-shooting since it was not totally smooth and resulted in David being out of focus for too long.
For today's shooting, I feel we kept to plan and stuck to the ideas presented in our treatment and we reflected our animatic accurately so there would be no need to change it at this stage.
A main point to take from today's shooting was that time management was essential and that we should always allow more time, so we can do multiple takes of the same shot or even create new angles or shot types spontaneously which could result in a better outcome.
DAY TWO - 2ND FEBRUARY (Myself, Jodie and Mel were present)
We travelled to the location of David's house, which was my house located on Norton Lane, Great Wyrley. Unlike yesterday, we had many shots to carry out in today's session, including 2 match-on-action shots, one of David entering the house and one inside the living room, a 360 degree pan shot and a complex shower shot.
We had decided on the way to location that we would tackle the planned shots in chronological order according to the storyboard. I felt that this would make costume issues and changes easier and would reduce the risk of continuity errors. Also, if we ran out of time we could pick up filming again at a later date, without too much worry about changes of hair or costume. Finally, there is an outdoor shot that is meant to take place in the evening at around 7pm, which is the of the shots on the storyboard and also we planned to begin filming at half past 6, so it was logical to start with this shot.
The match-on-action was successful first-time, although we filmed two takes just in case they were difficult to match in the editing process. The outdoors shot was quite dark and although we were aware of a brightness filter we could apply, we were worried about how grainy the shot may appear on the screen. However, we decided to stick with the shot as the lighting was so authentic we felt we would be sacrificing realism if we shot the footage in an earlier light.
Our actress, who was to play Emma, had planned to arrive half an hour after the rest of the cast and crew as she is only present in the second half of the scene. However, she was ill and not able to attend; this was news we only found at once on location. Fortunately, we had a friend of ours present at the time of filming who was a drama student so she was happy to fill in. The costume was no problem and this was the first piece of filming that we planned to carry out with Emma present, so providing our new actress, Grace, was available for the other dates required, we were happy to cast her as Emma rather than sacrifice a whole days filming.
Originally, we had planned to use a 360 degree pan shot of David sat on his own at the dining table. However, we attempted to film this several times with great difficulty. We were using the circular dolly to stand the tripod on but this did not stop the natural bumps in the floor around the table. After many attempts we finally shot a smooth version, however, upon watching the footage back we decided that is did not give the right effect and did not match the intentions of the scene. The purpose of this shot was to show how alone David felt and was, but the pan shot just contained too much movement and made the pace of the scene and the editing seem heightened. As an alternative, I decided to place the camera on a small tripod on the table opposite David. This made for an intimate shot of the character were his facial expressions were really exposed and this turned out to be much more effective whilst watching back the footage.
There was a shot of David's alarm clock and David waking up to turn it over whilst still in bed. We had planned for there to be a focus pull, shifting the focus between the clock (foreground) and David in his bed (background). However, before we could attempt to film the shot, we soon realised that we had a lighting issue. Since it was around 9:00pm at this point it was dark outside and we needed to portray a shot at 7:00am. To solve this, we experimented with closing the curtains, turning on artificial lights and shining them on to the curtains. This worked well we felt, since the curtains were light-coloured anyway and it lit the room in an effective way. After solving this problem, we then had to alter the time on alarm clock and set the alarm to go off at 7:00am. Then we were finally able to attempt the focus pull, which worked after just two takes since we had been practising earlier in the day.
Finally, we needed to shoot the final shot of the evening which was the shower close-up. Ryan, playing the character of David, needed to bring shorts to wear whilst removing the rest of his clothes to go into the shower. This took quite a long time as there were a lot of people present in the room and Ryan needed to build confidence and clarify what he was required to do within the shot. This wasn't a problem for us, however, we had run over our planned filming time by quite a while which meant that some members of the group wanted to go home and were getting irritable.
Overall, this evenings filming was successful and I was very pleased with the footage that we had got. A lesson to learn from today was that planning exactly what shots we needed to do and in what order is essential. Also, it was obvious that we needed to delegate a role to someone who could set up the next shot as the current shot is being filmed.
DAY THREE - 4TH FEBRUARY (Myself, Richard 1/2, Mel and Jodie 1/2)
Today we planned to shoot all of our outdoor footage in our location for 'The Park' which was situated in Cheslyn Hay. We had to take the crane equipment out with us, which we had practised setting up beforehand whilst waiting for our actors to arrive. The shots we captured using the crane we were extremely happy with. However, since we were out in the open, we couldn't use a monitor since we had no power supply to use. To ensure that our footage was appropriate, we attempted each shot several times. After reviewing our footage once back at school, we had one outstanding take which we felt had to be the one we would use. Although, mid-way through the shot, the camera appears to hit the ground (it was actually a jerky tilt by the camera operator) and after reviewing this we think this may need re-shooting but we decided to wait for a feedback session to see if it came up.
DAY FOUR - 5TH FEBRUARY (Myself)
This morning, I drove Ryan to the location of 'The Office' scene that we plan to use. Today, I plan to film at least 16 shots that cover two days of David's work in the film. I wanted to include a shot of handheld camerawork to create a moving, over-the-shoulder shot to demonstrate appropriate use of handheld camerawork. The filming indoors went very well and nearly every shot was achieved in one take, however, when we came to filming outdoors I encountered some problems. The shots I needed to execute included a match-on-action of David leaving the office, entering his car and driving away. However, it was extremely windy and also it was an overcast but bright morning. To counter the brightness problem (too bright!) I decided to lower the exposure level on the camera. The result on the camera's screen seemed to be satisfactory. However, the second problem of the wind was more difficult to overcome, especially since I was on my own in terms of crew members. I tried my best with the tripod and recorded several takes that seemed to be okay, but when they were captured onto the computer it was evident that the wind had made the camera shake substantially.
Overall, todays filming was pretty successful, with just the outdoor shots that will probably need re-shooting at a later date, but again we will wait for feedback.
DAY FIVE - 8TH FEBRUARY (Mel)
Today, we had planned to film the graveyard scene and also the police cell shots in the afternoon. The graveyard was located nearby, in Cheslyn Hay, whilst the police cell had been set up in the school's drama studio that we had hired for the afternoon. Unfortunately, the graveyard scene required a dingy, overcast day, in terms of weather and today was incredibly sunny and bright. We considered filming anyway and just altering levels such as brightness in post-filming editing, however, we decided that we should leave filming until tomorrow, since the actors were free and it was forecast to rain.
As an alternative, we decided to continue to film the indoor shots of David in the police cell. We felt that we were not all needed once we had fetched the set required for this scene and set it up in the studio. We had coached Ryan through what was required of him and left Mel to execute the camerawork as it was just one shot that was necessary.
Overall, I believe we made the best of an unfortunate situation we were presented with this afternoon and best of all, no re-shooting will be required from today's footage.
DAY SIX - 9TH FEBRUARY (Myself, Jodie and Mel)
Today is the final day of filming, where we needed to execute the filming of the Graveyard scenes, with Ryan's character and also the Police Officer. Once we arrived on location, where we had already checked with the local council to confirm that filming on the site would be acceptable, we were inspired to try many new shots that were not necessarily planned in the storyboard or the schedule. These included a tilt-shot from behind a gravestone, looking up at David's character. I think these were particularly effective and will be vital in making this scene look authentic and full of tension, especially after they have been edited. However, we where pushed for time, since the actors had to be done within an hour. We did not want to waste this opportunity, since the conditions were perfect, so we had to decide whether to spend time getting several takes of the planned shots or try to incorporate our new ideas. In the end, we did only one take of each shot but this resulted with lots of different footage and shots that we could use.
Overall, the footage from today was good and would not need re-shooting. However, I feel we may need to take care whilst editing the footage, as I believe there may be some continuity errors as we rushed the filming. This could be easily solved with transitions and fades which could give a surreal, mysterious element to this scene.
