The time set for arrival for the extras was 3:00 PM at my house. Since the house attack scene was shot just the day before, I didn't have much time to look over the footage. I woke up earlier and started to set up the house for the party. Days prior, I had done tests with how I would light the house to appear like a party. The main idea that I had was that it had to be very colourful and energetic, to contrast the dimness of the other scene.
Previously, we had created a Facebook event with details of the party, to attract extras, as we would need quite a number to create the correct atmosphere. The combination of word of mouth and convincing our friends to be in the film, we got 9 extras. This seemed few, but we would pack them all into the shots to create the illusion that it was a full party. We invited Tom Williams, out of gratitude towards letting us shoot in his house the day before. Since I live in Crowborough, and most of the extras lived further away in Tunbridge Wells and beyond, I gave details of the bus route for those unfamiliar with the area.
Taran was in town at that time and I co-ordinated with him to get some party supplies. He brought a hefty number of glow sticks. George King, one of our extras brought some empty alcohol bottles, which I thought would add to the authenticity of the party. He also brought, at my request, his set of Cards against Humanity as it was a common party game. Once everyone arrived, we gave them some time to interact and talk to each other. Lara was the only actor for the day but she didn't know anyone, as she went to a different school, so this time was vital in getting her chemistry with the others just right in time for shooting. When they were settling in, myself and Taran chose the locations for each different scene. I again, was main camera operator while Taran directed the Lara and the others. But he also joined in on the party atmosphere and acted like an extra. Since little was planned in terms of actions, it was quite unpredictable so I shot much longer takes/shots rather then cut after each action happened.
Often when shooting, I didn't tell the actors that I was filming, so this gave everyone a very natural and believable performance. I thought the shoot went quite smoothly, we only had some specific beats that we had to film in a precise way, but the rest we just let everyone do what ever they wanted. I think it was a very exiting and fun atmosphere and this helped give it a very authentic feel, rather then too forced.
The second day's shoot was assured to be a more relaxed and less strenuous affair, as the shots we had planned involved far less 'action', and the success of the photography would depend on how we managed our multitude of extras.
Mishaal and I, some weeks prior to the shoot had organised a Facebook event, detailing the task at hand and our necessity for extras, and we hoped that those we invited - mostly close friends from in and out of school - would be able to attend and help us out. In the end we had nine people to work with, and whilst we would have liked to have more, we were careful about character blocking and positioning, ensuring that the nine actors we did have would all be in frame as much as possible. In fact, having more extras could have been detrimental, as organising and managing more people could have been very difficult and stressful.
Before the event started at 3 PM, I went into Tunbridge Wells to meet Pablo, purchase some glow sticks for use as props, and most importantly, buy myself a latte. After we, and the rest of the extras, along with Lara reprising her role as Giulia, we allowed some time for our crew to chill and familiarise themselves with each other, building the atmosphere of the party, whilst Mishaal and I made the final preparations to begin shooting.
We'd contacted several of our extras about bringing more props - George King brought with him empty alcohol bottles and glasses, and a set of Cards Against Humanity, a party game. Felix Atkin had also supplied Mishaal with a smoke machine that we used to further create the party atmosphere.
Giving the actors time to themselves was really influential in building realistic chemistry between them, something that we really wanted to convey on screen. This was also a task I took head-on, bringing as much enthusiasm to the table as I could, and riling up our extras to get them into an energetic party mood. It was vital that we built verisimilitude up in every aspect of the day's shoot, in the actors, extras, props and set pieces that we were using. All things considered, the second day's shoot was a breeze. Our extras were incredibly co-operative, the shots we took looked amazing, and it gave us great satisfaction just to quickly look over all of the footage that evening, with the shared knowledge that we'd just passed a huge milestone.
During our first film shoot, Mishaal and I both had quite a relaxed attitude to the operation. We both took on the roles of director, exchanging roles frequently and communicating clearly to make sure we were both on the same page. In essence however, I focused more on directing our actors, whilst Mishaal prioritised the camera and camera work.
Working with Lara and Ollie was a very pleasant experience - from the start, the two of them were obviously excited, enthusiastic and supportive about the project, and were both keen to take up their roles in front of the camera with all of the energy they'd promised us. Both were incredible in their roles, bringing authentic performances to our piece that have greatly benefitted it. Ollie was excellent, however we're planning on contacting him again in future to work on some extra sound for the sound mix. Whilst we're at it, we may talk with Lara again about doing some sound as well.
Both actors were very open minded on location, taking my criticisms well and immediately acting on the advice.
The shooting altogether took a lot longer than we had first anticipated - mainly due to us underestimating just how long it would take to complete all the shots. What we had hoped would be around a four hour shoot ended up taking seven, and whilst this was a major mishap on our part, our actors and Tom's family were very understanding, both working together and helping us out wherever they could. Tom's family were very generous in providing us catering (in the form of McDonalds).
Overall, even with all of the setbacks and inconveniences, working together and working with such dedicated and open-minded actors made the shoot a pleasure to work on. The footage we took from it was incredible, the fight scenes in particular were amazing to film, and watch back.
Day 1 was a very hectic shoot. We set the arrival time for 2:30 PM at Tom's House. We planned to finish at around 6:00/7:00 PM. We ended up finishing at 10:00 PM.
I thought the shoot went well. We had a little bit of time from when both of the actors arrived and when it got dark enough to shoot, to run through the whole fight sequence so that shooting it would be faster. We also decided to go through the detailed psychology of the characters, such as their personal history, motives and thought processes. I thought this made the rest of the shoot much more efficient as we weren't making any new choreography or developing the character motivations.
I was the main camera operator on the shoot. Myself and Taran shared equal directing duties, such as conveying the vision of the film to the actors and discussing the characters with them. Taran handled more of the character blocking while I framed the shots. It required a lot of communication between us so that we would match the movement of the actors with the movement of the camera in a dynamic way. I was also in charge of lighting, meaning turning on and off certain lights in the location to achieve a desired effect. This was difficult as many of the lights were under the same switch as well as the family still being in the house. The only actual non-practical light source that we brought was an iPad. This was only used in the bedroom sequence, in which I came up with lighting up Ollie's face as it was quite dark in that corner. I experimented with a few colours, but liked the blue/purple colour as it contrasted the orange light in the room quite well.
Since we had already been to the location previously and taken stills of most of the desired camera angles and movements, most of the shooting was according to how it was shot then. But there were certain moments in which Taran, in most cases, would come up with another way of shooting the immediate sequence and then we would discuss it. We did argue a few times during the shoot about how to film certain scenes and how it would play out in the edit. For most of those, we settled with a compromise and ended up shooting both ideas and deciding which to use in the edit. The reason why we were took longer then expected was because we took more time in the set up and execution of each shot. Day 2 of the shoot would be much more relaxed so I was somewhat relieved that the most difficult day was done.
Once we had confirmed Lara Pain as our main actress, I wanted to meet the actors in person, to pitch our idea in full and answer any questions they had. The most convenient date was after school on Monday 14th December in a cafe on the Tonbridge high-street. This was important as Taran and myself hadn't known Lara previously and so it was vital that we got to know each other and so the shoot would be smoother as we'd trust each other more. Once both of the actors arrived, we discussed the whole piece, and they were very enthusiastic and excited by the complex narrative. I brought the camera that I'd taken to the house yesterday, for the location scout and showcased what we had shot. This helped in letting them know what they would be doing. We finalised costumes as well, bringing the slides of our original pitch. We knew we wanted a photo of them for the frame prop in the house, so we took the photo at the end of the meeting, asking them to look like natural and in a relationship.
We realised that the fight choreography would be complex and be dependant on the nature of the house. Once we got some pictures of our friend Tom Williams' house, it seemed perfect for the scene. Mishaal knew from previous experience that getting even a little sense of the location prior to shooting was very useful, so that on the day of the shoot we wouldn't be running around planning out choreography. The date was planned for Sunday 13th December. Firstly, we walked around the house to get to know the location. Then we started to pick areas for the beats in the scene. We choreographed as we went along and eventually had a solid plan. Mishaal took the camera that we'd be shooting with and took various stills of all the angles and shots, effectively creating a motion video of the whole scene. Since the location for the party scene was Mishaal's house, he was already familiar with that location and the areas needed weren't as specific as this house scene.
These are the storyboards, drawn by Taran. They illustrate some of the key initial moments in the opening of our piece. We were going to the location for the house fight sequence anyway, to plan out the choreography and blocking, so I took the same camera that we'd be using and we ran through the whole sequence in the house, shooting the desired shots and angles along with suggesting the camera movement. We used Tom, the friend who's house it was, as the attacker for framing and staging the actions. Since the shooting in the party house was going to be much more relaxed and we would just film the interesting actions, we decided not to storyboard it, although we knew which specific scenes we needed from the shoot.
