Personal Journal
( – An Extension to Things mentioned in the Critical Evaluation )
First day of shooting
The weather was lovely, the costumes and props where ready, camera fully charged , and everybody on location. The shooting begins and before you realise it so do the issues! First the batteries of one of the microphones die on us. Second the quiet little place i thought we where shooting at came to be a very busy road whenever we where shooting and last, it was raining! It wasn’t a problem you see cause we where all dedicated into the film so a little water would do us no harm we even used umbrellas to cover up the camera! You see the problem was that, the sudden change of weather altered the colours of the film. So we had to sit around and wait until the clouds had passed so we could shoot again. It took time that first day but the first day of shooting was over.
The second day of shooting was arranged a week after the first day we shot because of the group members busy schedule. But we where faced with kind of a big problem. My co-actor Johnny had something he could not get out off and had to leave Bristol for a week or so. Seeing as we could not get this done by losing a whole weeks worth of shooting we thought that the best way to go was to re-cast. We call up friends, acquaintances anyone who could do it and we did. Tom again a friend of Niall’s ( impressive connections that Niall, good friends ) was able to shoot it with us. Again a group meeting was at large. We talk and discuss if everybody is ok with the date arranged, and again once more we where on set!
Second Day of Shooting
Fully stocked on batteries, checked on the weather and it would be lovely, took photos of the actors clothes to avoid continuity errors, practised are lines (threatened the new actor that if he suddenly dropped out of this project we would kill him….haha lightening the mood a bit hahaha….ekhm) and BOOM 2 and a half hours later we where done.
When going home our editor Jaden was kind enough to do a rough cut of the film to see how it looked so far. Trueth be told it looked alright! So now we where excited to go on! Texts where texted, calls where called and facebook messages where…facebooked messaged? (again haha but now serious again) This was actually one of the things that where the most tiresome about beeing the producer, you have to call everybody and text everybody and make sure all is good and all are okay and ready for go! And so we find our second location. An empty road in the middle of nowhere that looked perfect for the scene we had to shoot. And it was at night and inside a car. So that meant we had to be able to figure out the lighting. Cause actually none of us where assigned to it so we all took care of it! We tried to use a lighting device that had to be plugged in the smokers car lighter so it could be generated. We tried it and…it was MAKING A HORRIFIC NOISE! we could’t shoot it like this so we all took out our smart phones put the flash light on and tried for us and our shadows to stay away from the cameras eye!
Third day/night of shooting
At night in the car as mentioned erlier. We did the scene a couple of wasy not being afraid to work around the script and improvise where the director thought we should. After our first location we had gone to an alley behind a student accomodation residance where Johnny Yates told as it would look apropriate. I told him to take photos of the place and send it to the rest of us. He did we liked and we went to check it out. On our way there we spotted a place that looked even better and decided to use it instead of the other one. We started shooting. We used our phones and even the cars head lights for lighting and we ended up with a great look. We finished and that’s when you hear the magic words…”That’s a wrap people” we all got very excited and started to leave. Until we all stopped when we heard that the cars battery we used its head-lights for lighting was dead and the car would not start.
Memorable experience
We all had to push the car up and down a road whilst the driver keeps trying to start it and all this because these kids didn’t have any cables so we can jump start it from another car. Alot of laughter was involved and a bit of cardio and at last the car WAS ALIVE!
I had gone home and shaved the beard i had left for this role, and it wasn’t until the next day the director, editor and myself realised we forgot a scene. and that scene involved me, and I JUST SHAVED! We would meet up a week later hoping my facial hair was to grow as fast as the beanstalk in Jack and the beanstalk! But the actor who had to do the scene with me couldn’t make it. We started freaking out until i had a little chat with the lad and next day he was up and ready to shoot.
Fourth day/night
It was a Saturday and the place we where shooting at was quite busy. My co-actor was actually just about to go out but he had bring his clothes with him. We tried to make the shot in such a way that the shaved beared insident would not show so much threw various angles and tests we did. And for the second and last time the shooting was over!
DeadKingDom 