Shoot day

Thursday 3rd March 2022

Shoot day step by step

I arrived at school at 8:20am for a 9o'clock start in the studio. I brought in all the props that we needed and I also printed out the shot by shot and the schedule for the day on a piece of paper. At 9am we met in the studio and helped Tom get all of the camera equipment that we needed and we headed to the bus. When we were on the bus we discussed where we wanted to film first as the weather was raining. We new that we were going to have to adapt our shot by shot as we didn't want the actors to have to sit in the rain for a huge amount of time. Tom then looked through our shot by shot to understand where we wanted to film throughout our day. When we arrived in Shere we had half an hour before Nikki was arriving so I suggested that we should look around the village and film some extra shots to add into our sequence. I thought that it would be effective to film by the stream as you could see the ducks playing and the rain splashing onto the water. We each took turns to film a few shots and took turns to hold the microphone and the umbrella over the camera. I also got to film some extra shots of birds to add the mood into our sequence. I thought that this was effective as I got to have a practice filming again before we had to film with the actors, I think this benefited the quality of the rest of our filming through out the day.

At 10:30 Nikki arrived into the village. As a group we had a talk about adapting the beginning of our sequence. We wanted to change the start to have Nikki driving into her parking spot, look at her phone and then slam her hands onto the steering wheel to show that she is mad at her husband. I then looked round the centre of the village to film a spacious parking spot for Nikki to drive into. We managed to find one that was near all three of our locations; the pub, the cafe and the centre of the village. Mia and I the spoke to Nikki about what she had to do in the take. Doug and I then helped Tom move the camera into the position that we wanted to be able to see her drive into her spot. To make sure that we got all of the correct shots we filmed this 4 times. We filmed the first one straight on in a wide shot, the in the same place but a mid shot filmed through the windscreen, then we did a straight on close up shot through the windscreen and the last one we filmed a midst from the side angle so we could see Nikki look at her phone close up. Mia and I thought it would be cool to film inside the car looking at Nikki from behind. When we filmed this I used the camera when we filmed outside the car and when we filmed inside the car I held the microphone.

At 11:00 Freya turned up and we spoke to her about the scenes that she will be filming in. Freya is playing Kate so she dressed as a mid 20 year old lady. We then moved the camera over to the pub as we were going to film there next. As the pub is a buisness and we needed permission to film there, Adam and I went inside to check that we were still allowed to film inside. I showed the man at the bar the email that we got from the manager saying we could film and he was very lovely and agreed that we could film anywhere. Doug and I then spent a few minutes looking round there restaurant of the pub working out which table would be the best to use if we were filming from outside looking in. One of the tables worked perfectly as it could be seen through a massive window on the door and was a table for two people. As in this scene we wanted to show that Nikki had gone crazy and was imagining her husband cheating on her, we filmed a few shots of the table through the window when no one was at the table. One of the problems that we had to sort out was the reflection in the window which effected the view off the table. I though that if Tom stood infront of the window and next to camera it would block out the light which is it. The next thing we thought would be effective to film is Nikki walking up too the door of the pub and looking through the window. We filmed this from two different angles. One was looking side on at Nikki and the other one was behind her looking past her shoulder into the pub. We then got Freya and Adam to sit in the pub with their drinks and practice laughing and looking natural like they are on a date. We first filmed through the window filming them cheers and laugh. We made sure we filmed more than once incase the reflection was effecting the shot. I really liked how this scene turned out as as the date looked very realistic. The next thing I filmed was behind Nikki shoulder again but you could see the couple in the pub. This was because when we edit the shots we can make it look like the couple has disappeared and it was all in her brain. Mia and I then got to film Nikki storming out of the pub towards the cafe. We filmed this in a wide shot, mid shot and a close up to make sure that we have lots of options to use when we are filming.

At 12 o'clock my mum and brother arrived as were using teddy as Adam and Nikki's child. As i knew the lady that worked in the cafe I went inside to make sure we were still allowed to film. We chose this cafe as it had an amazing big window which was very effective to film through.  Like the pub we got shots of Nikki walking to the window of the cafe looking in and seeing her husband, son and the Kate, We set up the table in the cafe with the three of the cast and made it look naturalistic and like they have been sitting there for a few hours. To show this we had cups of tea on the table, children books for teddy and coats on the back of the chairs. I got to film multiple shots of Nikki standing infront of the window. Some of the shots had the family sitting at the table and some of the shots we cleared the table to make it look as if they weren't there. I really liked this shot as it looked very real. It worked really well that there were other customers in the cafe as well.

After we filmed in the cafe we were finished we had lunch in the same cafe. This was really
nice as we all got to sit down and talk about everything we have filmed and needed to film. We also felt like it was only appropriate to eat in the cafe that had allowed us to film in. So far we were very happy with the filming that we had just dome. When we all finished eating we got on the minibus back to school to film in the studio. I was very excited to film in the studio as we were going to need to choose lighting and need to use make up on freya. One of the small difficulties of the day was that Mia and I had different ideas to Tom and Doug of what we were going to film in the studio. We spoke to Tom about our idea and he agreed that it would work well. He also showed us what his idea would look like. In the end both Mia and I agreed on Toms idea as we thought that it would be fun to film. I then took Freya to the bathroom and did her make up to look as if she had been constantly beaten up. I thought that the make up looked pretty realistic actually! In the studio we chose what lighting we needed. As we agreed that the studio could easily look like a wearhouse we decided to use red LED lighting which would make the scene look more scary and the tension can be built. Freya wore one of my t-shirts as we wanted to cover her in blood and bruises. We told Freya and Nikki what the goals were in this scene and they thought that this would look very cool on camera. We tied freya up to the bars on the stairs and filmed Nikki walking down with a bat and hitting her over the head. We got Nikki to cover her body over the camera so it would look like she is hitting freya over the head but she wouldn't have to actually do it. We filmed looking straight on at freya a 4 times as we wanted to get a variety of close ups. We ended up getting a mid shot, close up, very close up and an extreme close up. I thought that this would be a good idea as we could show freya's scared emotions. For one of the shot I held the microphone close to the stairs so you could hear the bat hitting the stair's, this would create atmosphere over the non-diegetic soundtrack that we are going to use. We also filmed from freya's POV looking up at Nikki. This shot looked really cool as Nikki looked like a silhouette because the red LED was behind her. I was filming this part so I asked Nikki to hit the bat over the camera to create a black screen. Now we have the black screen we can edit the title over the top of it.