Final Film Production Diary

Preparation

To prepare for shooting day 1, there was a lot of behind the scenes paperwork to do. We started off by brainstorming ideas for our final film. This was changed many times due to change of ideas. We then had to put together a pitch which was included of many different slides. This included:

• introduction
• plot
• inspired by
• target audience
• ideal schedule
• documenting
• biggest challenge
• skills
• production
• contingency plans

The first time we did our pitches, they didn't really go to plan. so we ended up doing them all again. The second time round was a lot better and my pitch was improved a lot. I just had to improve the quality and amount of slides i had to do. My first power point wasn't as detailed as the second one i did, so it drastically improved. Once we had started this, we had to do a scene breakdown. This was when we broke down each scene and wrote where the scene was, and what happened. We had to do this to get on with the script and for it to work. We had to do the first draft of the script, this took a few days. I had an issue with this because my computer froze and deleted all the work i had done that day. I had to go downstairs to the library and finish it again. Once i had done this it went okay. For my second draft of the script, I changed my story a little bit just to improve the script. On my third draft of the script, my script and story line changed completely as my ending just did not work. Once I had my final draft sorted, it was time for the scene breakdown. This took quite a while to do, as some of my scenes were hard to decide what shots would actually work. This is when it was time to schedule. I had quite a lot of problems with this, as trying to find a time when the actors were free, the location was free and the time was right was hard. I had changed my scheduling around a lot before i had my final schedule but when i did, it was time for actual paperwork like risk assessments and release forms.

Filming day 1

Once we had done all this and it was finished it was time to actually film. I was originally going to film on Wed 18th May, however I was unable to do this as Brooke was poorly. This was easily rescheduled to Monday 24th May when everyone was able to film. We met up on the morning in the dance studio at 9:30 when I had got the equipment. We then got the bus to the location which was Freya's house (34 Greens Grove). This took about ten mins to get there on the bus. Once we had got there, I set up the equipment while the actors went over their lines of scenes for that day. This took about twenty mins. Once we had done this it was time to start filming. we did this for about an hour and a half and then had a ten min break. We then carried on another hour and half filming until we went for lunch and this was around an hour. Once we had done this, we came back and did one last scene, which was scene 15. This only took around 15 mins. 

What Went Well

The things that went well on this filming day was the way the scenes were filmed as they all went right near enough the first time, or after a couple of times. I filmed the longest scene yesterday which was scene 17 and this took around an hour to do as there was a lot of shots. Another thing that went well is the location and how well i could set up the camera and lights for filming. The actors all knew their lines so no one forgot them during filming and my directing went well, as they were getting ready to each scene when they needed too. My crew for this filming day was Freya Whitehouse and Josh Jorgensen. This worked really well as the communication was really good.

Improvements

Things we could have done better next time is the timings of shots and scenes. I did not leave a lot of time for each one and therefore we did not get fully finished. Now we have more to do on filming day 2, however I have learned from mistake. Another thing that went completely wrong is that I dropped the camera. 

Filming Day 2

For this filming day we did 9:30 till 2. We did 6 scenes and 3 in the morning, 3 in the afternoon. We got through them quite quickly and everything went okay. We met in 224 at half 9, however Brookes bus to get here was a bit late so we had a fifteen minute later start, however this was okay and didn't effect anything. Me and Josh got the equipment and carried it to the bus stop. We all used the same bus to get to the location. We were filming at 34 Greens Grove which was Freya's house. Once we got there, I gave the actors about 15 minutes to read over and practice their scripts whilst I set up the equipment.