Filming Day

On the 2nd of January, we all went to James's house as we had previously arranged. This is because the furniture of the living room is quite old, the room is spacious and we had complete control of the light. We all had separate roles according to necessity and strengths. I was in charge of lights as I owned a studio light and I have had experience with lighting before. James was in charge of camera operation as he had the most experience and he did most of the storyboard so he is most aware of the camera angles. Matt chose to direct the filming as he wanted to be in charge of what scenes we filmed as he was very focused on getting the job done properly.

Throughout the day, I was checking for any issues in the lighting in shot, too often was there too much light, then not enough. Through proper placement of the lights available to us, we were able to resolve these issues.

I believe we got a lot done in the hours we spent there. We worked well eliminating the scenes to film and filming them more than once as we wanted to play around with the areas open to interpretation left from the storyboard. This led to minor conflicts which were resolved quickly.

The actors were more than co-operative, Following exact instructions and more than happy to commit the time to us.

This doesn't mean the day went off with only minor issues. Problems came about that we needed to resolve quickly or it would seriously affect the filming.

The first problem we faced was the light. We couldn't have the studio light the way we had originally planned as it was too bright even with cover. I had to improvise and move it as far away as possible and  face the light the other way so it reflected most of the light away. This wasn't desirable but we achieved the effect we wanted.

Another problem was the room itself. Whilst there was a lot of furniture that suited the era of the 1940's, there was also a lot we had to move out of shot so it looked like a room in the 1940's.

The main problem however, was time. We had about four hours to set up, film and go. This put pressure on us and meant that the initial setup was quite stressful, especially when we had realised we hadn't thought of things (an Inkwell etc.). We did however combat these issues and we came out with solutions that fit the problem.

All in all, the filming day was a huge success as we filmed the majority of the sequence and we achieved some really nice shots.