Death of the Shoot

We have come to the conclusion not to shoot tonight, Tuesday the 6th January. It is our last chance to re-shoot in our basement location but once again we have experienced problems in communication with our actors, and one of them is unfortunately unavailable. However, since our decision last term to re-shoot on this date we have made some successful changes to our current sequence of footage and we believe this has come together nicely and would be fine for our final piece. We are beginning to sort out the problems with lighting and sound that we originally intended to change by re-shooting, so for this reason the failure to re-shoot tonight is not such a disaster.

We are now making decent progress with the footage we have. We have learnt many lessons about communication and actor problems along the way, some which could have been dealt with such as phone numbers, and some which could not have been dealt with such as illness and unattendance. Now, we are officially not shooting again for this project.

Re-Re-Shoot (problems and resolvements)

Once again illness managed to spoil the party today, with Matt our actor not turning up at school (probably due to illness - although he could have told us or at least turned his phone on!). As media students we are aware that by recruiting two actors outside of media who may not have the same commitment in the project as us that these problems may arise, as well as the possibility of illness and all other silly things.

We have resolved to give shooting a break until after christmas. We have organised so many and we are now very tired. The idea this week is to try and edit our old footage. We have already sequenced it together and there are a few editing techniques we think we could possibly use such as turning up the lighting or brightness on a few shots and blanking out a visible background studio light which ruins one particular shot. At the end of the day, if this fails or is not quite good enough for a final copy as it may be quite patchy, we are likely to hold ONE MORE SHOOT on Tuesday 6th January (first Tuesday back after christmas). Actors are confirmed for this date and hopefully everyone will have recovered from all colds by fattening themselves up over the festive season so they are nice and protected from these Arctic winds. By shooting on this date, we will be left with just 3 days to edit the sequence, but seeing as we have already placed a structure of how the sequence will run using the old footage, we already have done the titles, soundtrack and sounds and will only need to simply replace the footage and neaten it up. Some solid editing from Wednesday until Friday 9th January should see us through!

Let this be the last big problem pleeeease (I know we can't help illness).

Kris

Re-Re-Shoot

Shooting Schedule
Date: 16/12/08
Day: Tuesday
Time: 12.30 + (school finishes at 12.30)
Location: Latymer School Basement
Actors: Matt & Rob

Same old, same old...
hopefully the last!

Re-Shoot

Despite all 3 of us feeling rather ill, as well as our actors, we decided to go ahead with the shoot. The shoot went surpringly well and we were alot more efficient and productive than before, getting things done smoothly and quickly. We managed to get all our re-shots done and our actors were very cooperative despite being slightly under the weather. We narrowed down our shots into ones we needed and ones we didn't, helping with the productiveness of the shoot. We got the shots we needed done. Now we hav to incorporate parts of our new footage into the sequence we have made using the old footage, as certain parts need improving.

Kris

Problems with the re-shoot (resolved)

As well as Rob not able to make it on Tuesday, Matt unfortunately fell ill and was not present at school - big problem! We had a stand-in actor (Ben Tucker) for the killer and Kris (me) to play the victim, but we decided that the actors we had already were perfect and to change this would be mad. We were also happy with some of the shots involving these 2 actors from the previous shoot and had worked had to edit these together in sequence for the time-being. Therefore we were able to change the shoot night to Thursday night thanks to the fantastic cooperation and consideration of Miss Blackborow and the media department, as well as the caretakers. Rob Demont is a definate for Thursday night, as is Matt Doyle unless he is still ill-striken (fingers crossed he won't be). If this is the case we will have to work around this either by using stand in actor Ben Tucker who is still being notified about the case, to change the shoot date again, or simply shoot Matt's scenes during lunchtimes and free periods. This would obviously not be ideal due to the time taken clearing out space in the basement to shoot, so we are desperately hoping Matt will get better quickly!

Things we have learnt through this series of unfortunate events:

- Notify actors of ALL shoot dates including re-shoots so we know when they are definately free and can book these slots in advance.

- Communicate better with the media department about problems that arise by notifying them of any stresses upon a shoot so they can be resolved within plenty of time.

- Always make sure you have backup actors and backup shoot times.

- Look after your actors as best you can and do your best to keep them immune from all forms of disease!

Kris

Shooting Schedule

Re-Shoot
Date: 11/12/08
Day: Thursday
Time: 3.45pm +
Location: Latymer School Basement
Actors: Rob Demont & Matt Doyle
Helpers: Barney Carter-Phillips (for continuity)?

Problems with the re-shoot

Due to Rob being incredibly unreliable, we now have to find another actor to play the victim in this sequence. Kris has said that he will do it if we can't find anyone else.

Note: Rob is unreliable!

Jack

Lighting

I thought our lighting could be similar to in this picture of a basement setting. It is pretty much the same as what we were doing before with all the basement lights off and just the studio lights, but in the shoot we did not use this to best effect. In this picture there is a fairly strong studio light centered an a point of the room, and we could shine a studio light on the actor at a stronger intensity (with blue gel) in order to focus the attention on them and express their features and expressions more as well as sharpening their shadows. This I do not feel we did well enough in the first shoot as we tried to flicker the lights on and off but this only caused a blurred focus on the camera. We should always keep the intensity the same, and making it fairly high will be more effective within the pitch black darkness than the extreme dimness we tried last time. The lighting will still be low key but will simply be clearer and sharper such as in good films such as Saw.

Kris

Changes to be made

- No flickering lights, more directed light on actors faces but at a dim intensity.

thats it for now...

Re-Shoot List

Re-Shoot - Tuesday
- ECU victims eyes waking up
- CU victim conversation
- MCU killer conversation
- LA MLS conversation
- HA OTS MLS conversation (from behind)
- POV track killer entering and exiting
- CU victims hands and feet (and some struggle)
- MCU of victim tilt up from feet
- CU killers hand on chair arm
- CU killers hand reaching for weapon and stroking it
- MCU killers feet pacing around chair

To shoot at other times
- MCU weapons lined up on bench
- MCU killers feet walking downstairs
- POV track killer entering and exiting
- CU box falling to ground where a second victim lies
- Cutaways of random points in room (left and right of Rob)
- Cutaways for credits (drainpipe, lights etc)
- Sound clips (buzzing, banging, scraping, screams etc)