My Film - Production Diary

6th December 2015: Bedroom 1
This was the first shoot of the project; I'd drawn up the story board and written the screenplay and was ready to get going! Keeping in mind that there had already been a problem with my project when my actress dropped out last minute, (a problem rectified only when my amazing friend, Rose Blackburne, stepped in to save the day,) I should have expected that things would never go as smoothly as imagined...

The first part I scheduled to shoot was the scene in which the protagonist is preparing for her run; we shot in the evening as it worked best with our schedules, and as the bright lighting of my bedroom meant the darkness outside didn't matter.
All the shots at this point were static close-ups, as the exposition and focus on these reveals to the audience that the protagonist is a female teenager getting ready for a run, setting up the storyline.  
The shoot went quickly, (20 minutes tops,) and everything seemed well.

However, as soon I reviewed the footage the problems began.
I suddenly realized I had forgotten that my protagonist was meant to be wearing headphones, I hadn't focused the camera on the right section of carpet so my close-up shot of the protagonist tying her shoes was blurred, I had forgotten to film her checking her text messages (which is the key signifier for my film's plot...)
The list goes on.

I wasn't particularly worried as I still had plenty of opportunity to set my mistakes right, but it was irritating. Nonetheless, I chalked it up to experience, scheduled the reshoot, and moved on.



9th December 2015: Chase scene (w/ GoPro)
This shoot took place on a Wednesday from 2:15pm to approx. 4:00pm (which is about when the sun set and it was too dark to film further.) We were restricted to filming on Wednesday's after school, as my sole cast member, (Rose Blackburne,) and my camera man, (Charles Verfuerth,) both worked weekend jobs, making filming impossible. With such a narrow window of filming opportunity, my biggest challenge became nature itself; I had little choice but to cross my fingers and hope that we wouldn't be rained out of our slot.

And miraculously, the weather was sunny.
(I was actually annoyed by this, as it meant I'd have to add in the eerie gloominess in editing, but it seemed a minor issue in the grand scheme of things.)
The plan was to film the chase scene; we'd brought along a steady-cam rig to film close up shots of the protagonist's face as she ran, and a go-pro to get the 'monsters' p.o.v as it chased her.

Once the steady cam was set up, I talked my actor through her running route, explained what I wanted to my camera man (a mid-angle medium close-up of my protagonists face as she ran,) and stood back to watch the action and keep an eye out for problems.
Of course, we hit trouble instantly; it only took the first run to realize that the steady-cam we had couldn't cope with the speed of the sprint of my actor, as it spun round after a few moments, producing shaky footage. It was also incredibly difficult for my poor camera man to run with his arm at an angle to keep the steady-cam in the right position for a mid-angle medium close-up of the protagonist running, while still being fast enough to stay ahead of my sprinting actor, and to not fall over in the inconveniently muddy and slippy track we were on, (and his fancy shoes really didn't help either.)
Unperturbed, we simply ran it over and over again - sometimes with me working the steady-cam, as my shoes were more appropriate - with the idea that each time we'd get a few seconds of clear footage that could be cut in with the monsters p.o.v shots (which would generally be medium-long shots of the protagonist, following her from behind.)

The go-pro running was even more challenging. As I was playing the 'monster/friend', the job of the go-pro wearer was mine. Once I had it strapped onto my head, we began the chase - however, I could only ever go a few feet, as the bushes that I was meant to be running through, actually had little room to move past. It also proved difficult to hold my head at an angle that kept my sprinting protagonist clearly in shot, while not tripping over my own feet and avoiding my hands from being in the shot.

I had intended to also film the scene in which the protagonist meets her 'friend', but due to the difficulties in getting steady shots of the chase scene, we ran out of time.

While it didn't go exactly how I'd planned, I'd once again gained valuable learning experience, and achieved some useable footage.



13th December 2015: Bedroom 2
As I'd already filmed most of the 'getting ready' clips before, I now had a better idea of what to do and how to do it, meaning that this shoot went a lot faster than the first. I intended to use the same shot types from before, and also referred to my call sheet so as to guarantee I got all my shots this time.

This time I also adjusted the white balance so that the contrast between the inside and outside scenes wouldn't be as jarring.
For filming the phone screen I struggled to get the right angle where the overhead lights didn't reflect and burnout the text on the screen. The solution was to make my phone's screen green, and use special effects in editing instead.



14th December 2015: Shadow
For this shoot I wanted to film the pivotal moment when the protagonist realises she's being stalked. My location was the wall of the church building in the graveyard, and my original idea was that the protagonist would run up and pause to catch her breath. While she rests, she checks her phone, before becoming aware of something watching her. For a few moments she looks around trying to identify who or what it is, till something spooks her and she sprints away.
Initially I had hoped to use a powerful flashlight to project shadows onto the church wall, where unbeknownst to the protagonist (as only the audience would see this,) one of the shadows is not actually hers, and begins to move towards her threateningly. However this didn't work out as it was too bright to produce a shadow.

This scene relied upon close-ups (ranging from medium to extreme, sometimes static, sometimes zooming in) so as to capture the emotion the protagonist feels, and to help build tension. I used a trip-pod and sony camera, checked the white balance, and took multiple shots of the scene from different angles. This scene was one of the easiest to film, as I was able to use a static shots (compared to the difficulty of filming running.)

I used my iPhone 6 (as I didn't have a go-pro) to film moving medium p.o.v shots of the 'monster' stalking her. I actually preferred using the iPhone 6 to the go-pro as it allowed me to see what I was filming as I filmed it, which helped me capture better footage.



16th December 2015: Rose & I
For this scene I had to rely on my camera man, Charles Verfuerth, to film with 2 cameras on tripods while also operating a boom mic and sound recording equipment, all because I cast myself to play the 'monster/friend'. To make matters worse, we were fighting time to finish before sun set, while filming on a fairly busy path (meaning we got a lot of lovely shots of dog walkers...)

With only one person manning all the recording equipment, it was no wonder that things went wrong. The scene was fairly simple, a shot-reverse-shot of the conversation between the characters, and a long shot of them running off down the path, followed by a pan down and close-up on the dropped phone.

While filming, all seemed to go well, (aside from my terrible acting, and that I forgot the phone;) but when I went to review the footage afterwards, something had gone wrong and parts of the footage were missing, and the only sound recording we had was of me wailing at my camera man in distress.

Not at all successful, but certainly a gained experience.
Next time around, I'll triple check the tech.



9th January 2016: General Cemetery Run
During this shoot I needed to film the main run through the cemetery. I used a sony camera and tripod, taking static shots of the protagonist running towards and past the camera. I also filmed some static and some panning establishing/master shots, to help with the exposition.
I also used my iPhone 6 to take p.o.v shots, however upon reviewing the footage I realised i'd been holding it portrait, and that this would reduce the quality of the footage as it would have to be reformatted.
So once again, my list of 'reshoots' has grown.



20th January 2016: Rose & I (p.2)
By this point I had achieved almost all of my filming, and now needed only a reshoot of the final scene and the p.o.v shots.
On this particular day, the plan was to re-film the final scene (which would be a close-up over-the-shoulder shot-reverse-shot typical in dialogue scenes.) However, due to an unfortunate oversight, we were unable to use the shotgun mic, meaning I'd most likely have to do a dub over in editing.
All in all though, the filming went perfectly. The lighting was stunningly golden, there were no technical difficulties, and we had a limited number of interruptions from walkers.
The only thing left to do now is film the p.o.v shots, and then it's on to serious editing.



27th January 2016: Monster P.o.V
We'd finally made it.
The last shoot!
The weather was behaving, we had ample time till sunset, and the cemetery was empty and peaceful.
By this point we'd spent so much time here that none of us would've been surprised to get haunted as a result. (So far as I can tell no ghosts have tried to bother us though... maybe they found our efforts entertaining.)
Using my iPhone I filmed the monster p.o.v shots, making sure to remember to use it on landscape this time. The shots ranged from long shots to close-ups, with a few canted/dutch angles (used to connote something as being off) thrown in for good measure.

With that, the filming came to an end. I'll admit, I was almost sad it was over - what would I possibly fill my time with now (besides studying, coursework, homework, extracurriculars, a social life...)?

However, like all good things, this chapter of my project had come to an end.

The next chapter?

Editing.