Studio Shoot - Draft

Wednesday 24th Oct 2018

So to keep myself on top of my responsibilities for the build up to the shoot I am going to write a brief schedule of whats going down so I know whats going on.

So far we have pitched our idea, with some hesitation from the executive producers, we sat down after the pitch and had a group meeting.

After much discussion and input we decided taking the advice given from the pitch to simplify the idea was best and to ditch the flashbacks and flash forwards. We also had some feedback on whether our idea was going to be too melodramatic with the death scene and elements of her being a ghost. We all sat and it started to become more complicated by trying to simplify the idea. Thankfully, Cecily had the idea to ditch all the drama and focus on the relationship itself in that moment which will give us more time to get the sensitive subject of abuse correctly portrayed. We left it with Chloe to write the treatment which would then be sent off to the script team and myself and producers to give the thumbs up.

Today I wanted to and felt it to be my responsibility to come and be a part of the script writing to keep time and make sure everything was fair.

We left the script write with less than half the script written out due to some disagreements with the treatment we agreed on the day before and kind of decided to leave the script to Chloe as she is the most confident with her idea and therefore can convey it the best. I have been sent the script and believe that she has done so accordingly. The only worry Chloe and I have is the amount of content itself and will that be 3 minutes worth of film.

The next stage is to sit down with Rosie tomorrow and hopefully get the go ahead and some feedback on what to do next. Then Chloe and I will sit down with the producers and go through amending the script to a final product. This will be made into a shot list by myself and Chloe to be sent off to the story boarders by Friday 26th October for them to work on over study week.

The next step after that is for myself and Chloe, DOP and story boarders to all sit together and work together to see what is possible and how it is all going to work out logically.

Somewhere between this is where we will likely begin to consider casting.

When the story boards have been finalised and a new amended shot list is made it is then down to me to create a schedule for the shoot days, call sheets etc.

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Sunday 25th November 2018

So the story so far...

Second half of the call sheet, I have taken the call sheet down as this shows personal details of the crew.

From where I left off last time, I have completed the call sheet for the production meeting with Rosie and Billie on the Thursday as well as creating a schedule to the shot list I was provided with at the time. We had a few meetings prior to the hand in for the production pack. A meeting was conducted by myself including Chloe, Alex, Avery, Jen, Emily, Cecily and Jasper where I wanted to made sure everyone knew what they were doing for the production pack and to sit down and finalise the storyboard and amend the shot list with DOP, Director and Story borders but DOP couldn't stay to sit down with us so we allowed everyone to go off and do their part.

The set build was fun, I helped cover the walls with the lining paper before the painting, the afternoon where we ran out of lining paper, I helped organise the clearing and relaying of the set to be able to paint the next day without any problems or needing to set up again. The next day I drove Brodie and myself to pick up some more lining paper and paint for the set. I helped paint the walls and beautifully paint the red window frame with Emily T. I also helped clear up at the end of this day too ready for the next.

Whilst all this was going on we were holding auditions for the roles, we had two separate days which we held the auditions, unfortunately I could only make it to one. The actors I saw with Chloe were very good so we decided to conduct a call back with the people we liked the most. We held the call back to decide on the male character and at first we were almost sure who we wanted but after I suggested to Chloe that we give the actors notes like we did in our acting workshops we realised we liked the other male more for the role. We also now have an issue where we do not have a male actor due to clashing timetables and have our female actor only on the Thursday. After discussing with Chloe she didn't want to have anyone else play the female role as the actor is perfect but we decided to audition another girl who wasn't as suited to the role and we agreed that I would amend the schedule to be able to fit the shots to the days the female could be in for.

I sat down with Alex our Gaffer and explained how the lighting would work with the changed set design and what equipment would be needed on the shoot days. Avery and I walked around the set and worked out how the lighting would fall too and then left it to Alex to digitize the lighting diagram. I suggested to DOP, director and Cecily our story boarder we needed to sit down and change the storyboard. We could only have our female actor make the Thursday so to be able to shoot all of her scenes within one day we needed to change a lot of the shots. I went through each shot and explained how I thought it could be done differently e.i. a more dynamic frame or changing the angle to be able to miss the female actor or trick the scene so the female actor didn't need to be present. Cecily made a lot of points too about certain shots and we left it with Cecily to finish drawing the amended storyboard up and me to complete the new shot list. Luckily Cecily and I were together all weekend and managed to amend the shots even further as a lot of things were not clear still or made sense with the nature of the scene or placement of the set. I managed to redo the entire shot list to be able to then amend my schedule.

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The Prelight 

Unfortunately my cars battery decided it didn't want to work in the morning so I managed to get into uni just before 12. When I got there the window light was put up and everyone went to lunch. After lunch I started organising everyone as we needed the lights to be agreed upon and put up. The arranged lighting from the lighting diagram did not give enough lighting so Anne and myself discussed putting up cross key lights which replicated the lamp within the set as she explained the set was too dark which I agreed. 

The Shoot

The first shooting day didn't start at the time I arranged it to and actually began shooting at about 11:20 rather than 9:50. Though through rearranging some shots and other bits I managed to get us back on track and we managed to finish on the scheduled time. However I decided it would be best if we completed some of the shots from the next shoot day on this day so we could have a shorter day and also be able to redo shot 9 with a little but more creativity. I think that my role on the day was very beneficial to the shoot, I did my speel of lights camera action etc. I also helped step in with some of the directing of the shots, as my photographic knowledge was handy to have some shots rethought. We reshot shot 9 two different ways, I suggested we use the slider and try and handheld motion for this too as the dolly didn't have the air in it to go up and down like we wanted it to. Anne suggested if we had time to do a POV shot from the male and we managed to move the set around and back in place with the help of Jen's amazing ability with the continuity. We also completed the vertigo shot and another simple shot and ended the day very tired but ahead of schedule for the next day. 

The second day of shooting was good we started a little later at 10:10am, which was okay as we had the 20 minutes spare that we saved from the shots we added in from the day before. We managed to complete two of the shots when our actor informed us he needed to leave for an hour and a half. This changed the vibe in the room and we all became a little stressed about when we would finish this day. I managed to reschedule some of the shots. The shots we could use a double instead of the actor we managed to complete while he was not present. When he returned the day continued a little behind schedule however we managed to finish at half 3 with all the shots completed. I decided it would be best to reshoot shot 1 as the handheld was difficult for Cecily and Emily P to navigate through the set and focus. After completing this 4-5 times and still not being 100% successful some people were a little done for the day and wanted to call it but I had faith that if we had one more take it would be the one. I decided not to listen and call another take and we managed to get the perfect take for the shot. We called it a wrap. 

Overall I am very happy with the outcome of the production and after seeing some of the rushes I believe we were successful. I believe my role was very crucial during the shoot days as the schedule needed reworking throughout each of the days though I did find this challenge fun. I would confidently say now that I could complete this role again with success.