After a long a stressful few weeks, it seemed that our group had finally pulled through, however we still had to shoot our piece. The day before we were going to be filming, myself and Alen went down to a road near one of the boarding houses "Peaslake". The road is in the middle of the woods and it's quite freaky so we thought that it might be good for the moment when the "amateurs" gets stolen off of. Here are some photos of the road:
We also ordered some gorilla masks for the "amateur" robbers from Amazon because it was cheap and it looked cool with the boiler suits.
After those were ordered, we all gave each other a time table of the availability of our actors.
TIME
|
Gustavo
|
Zell
|
Kenneth
|
Dave
|
Mike
|
Adam
|
James
|
09:30-10:30
| |||||||
10:30-11:30
| |||||||
11:30-12:30
| |||||||
12:30-13:30
| |||||||
13:30-14:30
| |||||||
14:30-15:30
| |||||||
15:30-16:30
|
We all made a checklist of what we have in terms of equipment and costume and when we came across something like the smoke machine we made sure we acquired it that day.
We then all made sure we knew exactly what we would be doing the next day and then we emailed our cast to make sure they knew what they needed to bring.
Dasha.Koenig
To:
Cc:
Friday, January 22, 2016 4:10 PM
Dear all,
Just letting you know what you need to wear to our shoot.
Zell, Adam, Kenneth, Dave: Please wear white t-shirts, dark sport shoes or timberland's or boots of some sort. Also, please bring a zip up jumper and dark jeans.
James Hartman and Gustavo: Black suite, plain tie and formal shoes.
Mike: Grey or blue suite's with plain ties and formal shoes.
If you don't have something from your costume then just let us know and we will sort it.
P.S Our thriller is this upcoming Wednesday!
Thank you!
Dasha, Ashen, Alen and Haydon.
That same night, we decided that Kenneth was too innocent to be in our piece as he wasn't the best at shouting. We then decided for Mike to take the place of Kenneth so we let him know that he didn't need the suit anymore. The only reason why we asked for them to bring those other clothes was just in case we decided that the boiler suits didn't look right with the masks. We also had a late panic when Gustavo told us that he didn't have a suit and it was too late for us to supply one for him, but thankfully his friend had one and lent it to him.
In the morning I was feeling very nervous because we had come so far and I really wanted it to work to plan. This whole process had been really stressful and it required a lot of dedication so I was hoping that it would turn out like we intended. I was also quite scared because for one, Gustavo said his suite was tight but it should be okay, and two because we weren't sure whether the gorilla masks would arrive on time.
When we arrived for the shoot, we had everything that we needed and extra backup costumes. As our actors were going to be in a van for a few hours, we thought that it would be nice to give them breaks when they needed them and give them crisps and chocolate to munch on.
When we arrived for the shoot, we had everything that we needed and extra backup costumes. As our actors were going to be in a van for a few hours, we thought that it would be nice to give them breaks when they needed them and give them crisps and chocolate to munch on.
Ashen bought the food!!!
Here is Sasha doing Dave's make-up for his shot wound...It looked very realistic!!!
When we arrived on set, it was raining and it was very muddy. This was even better than we imagined because the light outside was very dull and cold. We did however change the location of one scene. Rather than using the Peaslake road, we used an off-road car park nearby which was better because it was more open and made the "amateurs" look really isolated.
The wind also picked up which was nice because the antagonist (James) had a suit which blew backwards due to the wind. The way in which he strode with confidence towards the briefcase while pushing against the wind and rain made him look very powerful.
We used these crates to store some of our items and to keep all the cables and bags out of the way. There was a plug socket in there as well which we used to turn the light in the van on and off.
On the day, Ashen started off with the camera because he drew the story board and it was only fair for it to be him that films. Alex and myself switched with the sound so that we could both experience what its like on set in the middle of a scene. Dash went around the set with a camera and recorded what everyone was doing so that we could put it on our blogs. Dash and I also hug off the side of the van and rocked back and forward to give the impression that the van is moving.
Personally I thought that I was good at making decisions. There were times when we were all discussing last minute issues such as the need for Gustavo and whether or nor we should use the smoke machine. Our group had been fairly argumentative over the past few weeks because we are all very opinionated and passionate about our ideas and what we want to achieve. So I had the audacity to put aside my biased views of what I wanted and thought about whats best for the group. I took into account everyones thoughts and then gave back a response of what I thought should happen. If the group didn't like it, we went to a group vote instead. This turned out to work very well because that way nobody would be arguing and we would all focus on the task at hand.
One issue that our group had was that the smoke from the smoke machine was too thick for the van and the camera couldn't pick up anyones face. It was originally intended to create a tense and mysterious mood. We did think that smoke would look a bit weird anyway because it was unnatural, but it would have been unique. To get around this issue, we simply didn't use the smoke machine and instead we used lighting to create atmosphere.
Our other issue was that because of the rain and mud, Gustavo's suit that he brought would have got ruined and it wasn't even his to ruin.
I thought that the most successful part was the improvisation from our actors. We gave them the storyline and the background of their character but we didn't want them to have a script otherwise they would be thinking about their next line rather than the situation of the scene. Improvisation allows all of their responses to be real and therefore more effective.
The only part of the shoot that could have gone better was the use of fake blood. Due to the location of the scene being inside a van, we couldn't use too much blood in case some spilled on the floor. If that had happened, we would have had to spend more time cleaning the blood up and also the continuity of the amount of blood was hard to keep track of.
The best part of the shoot was the breaks because of the food and drinks. However I also like rocking the van back and forth because it let all my anger and stress out.
When editing, I'm really looking forward to seeing if the effect of rocking the van made it seem as if they are moving. As we are aware that it wasn't moving, I want to still be fooled in believing that it was.
I thought that as a team, we worked very well because we were all focus don what we wanted to achieve. Not one member of the group took this day lightly and we all played a part in creating our piece. The day wasn't as manic as I thought it would be because we had everything organised and we weren't worried about anything.
From this experience, I learnt to;
a) be prepared and organised a lot earlier than a few days before the shoot
b) accept other peoples ideas rather than being bias
c) be prepared for any kind of weather that the day throws at you
This will ensure that my next shoot will run a lot more smoothly.
No comments:
Post a Comment