Today was our first shooting day and I couldn’t have been more excited, I was constantly worried about everything, like if I forgot to buy a prop or if someone would pull out last minute. I spent the majority of the college day running around just double checking with everyone, as a precaution I insisted on of the crew to stop over as they do live a distance from the set and I didn’t want anyone to turning up late. So Lewis, Jordan and Christi stopped over, when we arrived at mine we decided to quickly set up the lighting equipment as Lewis and I had before. Everything was back in place but for some reason the area where the character Luke is positioned in the first basement scene just didn’t seem lit enough but it was too late to do anything about it.
Before settling for the night, we went through the equipment
to make sure the camera lens was clean and we had everything ready, whilst we were
doing this Christi was preparing with the makeup aspect. We had all the
equipment apart from the reflecting board which is critical for the basement
scenes, so I decided I would go in to collect it. I also decided to take the
camera with me and show my tutor some of the practice shots we completed in the
basement hoping he could show me something to improve the colour and lighting. Even
though I was going into college, this wasn’t a concern as the actors wouldn’t
arrive until later and it the rest of the crew would continue with setting up.
I explained my concerns with some of the shots with Jamie and he quickly showed
me techniques by just adjusting the contrast on adobe premier it make a massive
difference.
As I mentioned whilst I was out the rest of the crew would
continue with setting up, the main concern was to set up the bedroom. The bedroom
has a massive impact on the audience as it is meant to reflect the character of
Tom, Tom being basically an alcoholic slob would more than likely have a messy
room which is completely unlike mine. So the crew had to remove the flags on my
wall arrange placement for the beer cans around the bed area, the night before
we ordered takeaway and the crew decided that the empty boxes should be
included in creating the scene. I had originally planned to have a bat nailed
up on the wall next to the cupboard but when we were discussing camera shots
and positioning we came to the conclusion that the best place for the bat should
be above the bed. Here some images of
the set once I arrived back.
Christi was having an input towards the construction of the
room but she was also focusing on creating the cut lip, I am not fully aware of
the details of how she made a convincing cut for the character Tom. I believe
she got layers of dried glue and striped them down then covered them in blood
red paint with smudges of black to make it more convincing, for more
information on Christi process here is a link to her blog; http://christicooperfmp.blogspot.co.uk/
Also here are some images she did of her work.
The shooting schedule- is as followed;
- Friday- every scene apart from basement.
- Sunday- all basement scenes.
- Monday- if needed missed shots.
We decided to shoot in sequence so that the actors could
follow the narrative more in depth which allows them to remain more in
character, we were not able to shoot on Saturday as I am at a wedding all day,
there has been concern that I may not in a good state of mind during Sunday
shoot but I am determined to make this project successful even if that means
leaving the wedding early.
Each of the actors had a different arrival time for a number
of reasons;
- Phillip (Tom) - Phil was to arrive at 10 o’clock so that we had time to set the make up on him and show him the basement with the lighting equipment set up.
- Heather (Mum) - She was to arrive at 12 o’clock because she had a meeting for her own personal project.
- George (Luke) – George arrived once he finished school roughly around 4 o’clock.
- Peter (Stepdad) – I arranged it for Peter to arrive after 4 o’clock so that he wouldn’t spend much time waiting around to perform.
We separated each of the scenes to be recorded between
myself, Lewis and Jordan. The majority of scenes were to be done by Jordan but
I wanted to record certain segments/scenes because I envisioned how they were
to be presented.
The camera operator for scenes are as followed;
- Jordan- basement 1, hallway 1 & 2, kitchen
- Lewis-bedroom 1, basement 3 & outside scene
- Me- Gas mask scene, basement 2, bedroom 2 & hallway 3
We began the bedroom scene roughly an hour after Heather had
arrived which we thought wasn’t an issue but seeing as they hadn’t rehearsed on
set they had to practice a couple of times. Here is some footage of us going
through the scene.
We
began the bedroom scene roughly an hour after Heather had arrived which we
thought wasn’t an issue but seeing as they hadn’t rehearsed on set they had to
practice a couple of times, also the mic wasn’t picking up enough. We adjusted
the volume but it then picked up too much ambience noise from outside. The
obvious decision was to move the mic closer but we hadn’t acquired a boom mic
to use. On another project I had forgotten the boom mic and had to construct
something to be used as mic; we taped the mic on the end of a large pole used
for tennis, it caused a little difficulty by the noise it produced when moved
but once in position it was fine. In the script it says
Tom is lying across his bed which we tried but it looked unnatural so instead
we had him lying normal in bed when he gets woken up which made it easier for
the transaction of him waking to moving into next position. we also thought it
would add more to the character with him clutching onto the bottle of vodka and
not caring when he drops it on the floor, with this we needed it to be seen as
open when close up, but prevent the floor constantly getting wet and less
amount of “vodka” in the bottle we kept the lid on it and made sure that it
wasn’t seen from other camera positions. This may cause a slight continuity
error but it is something we will have to deal with during the editing stage.
It took longer than expected to do this scene as we needed a
range of camera shots and we ran out of cigarettes for the scene so we had to
wait for Jordan to make another batch.
Also at times the “cut “on Phil’s lip kept falling out of place so we
would have to wait sometime to redo all that.
Once we finished this scene we had a break, this allowed all
the cast and crew to interact and share things about themselves professionally,
and I especially enjoyed listening to Peter about his career, past and future
roles.
Next we worked on the living room scene which was quite
simple, only needed a couple of basic shots, we did have some trouble with my
dog entering the room and barking when not allowed in but once we settled him
down we got the scene done. For now this is all George had to do, apart from
the basement scenes, he has very little things to do so he has to mainly wait
around until he is needed.
Now this is where it went a bit pear shaped for everyone, we
got all the shots we needed but half way through everyone got the giggles and
it took some time to finish the scene, due to this we lost the lighting which
means that we will have to pick up from this point on Sunday. I was going to
risk it but Christi had left for a personal matter and Phil had accidently ate
his fake cut so we just decided Sunday would be best. I would have arranged to
carry on tomorrow but as I said, I have to go to a wedding.
The scenes left to do excluding the basement are; kitchen
scene, hallway 2, outside, bedroom 2, hallway 3.
To finish off the day we all had tea then took pictures of
the cast so that we didn’t have any continuity error on the clothing. Below are
the pictures.
Overall it was a brilliant day, we didn’t get to get
everything we wanted but that’s why we have booked the equipment for Monday, as
a backup. I am a little worried on the footage we got in the hallway; I think
the lighting may be an issue, too dark. But I am sure this is something we can
fix during the editing stage.
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