Post 16

Production Report

I feel that this part to the task is the most important and therefore a lot of time and effort was put into this section. Now that the planning was finished we could start filming, however right from the beginning of the task we had some major problems that immediately needed to be solved. After two sessions of organising to film we felt that the actor we were originally looking to cast as the main role of James was unreliable and we found it difficult to find times to film as he had a lot of school work. With this in mind we then acted quickly and professionally to find a new actor to play Jamie. This time we looked for someone who would be reliable and also asked an A level drama teacher who she would recommend after I had pitched the summary of our film to her. She immediately reccommended the actor we are using now and throughout he has been a great actor and fits the role we had cast.

Day 1 of filming
I felt the first day of filming went reasonably well. After solving our problems with actors we then began filming scenes 1 and 2. The organisational side of the first scene went really well we made sure we had exactly what we needed to do in our mind and refreshed ourselves with what happens and what shots we need for this scene. When it came to filming I felt we were very organised and when asked actors said they knew exactly what they needed to do. When we watched it back we saw that our first day of shooting was almost like an experiment as we had never used this camera before however we wanted to use this camera because it gave a higher quality and was far more advanced compared to the one we had used before. On the first day of filming we also had trouble with the microphone as it kept blocking out sound, this is the moment when we saw how sensative the microphone was and how the member of our team on this job role had to be very careful at all times. We also had slight trouble with our framing in scene 1 causing us to go back and re-film. I learnt from this as before we went back out to film I did some research into what the framing should look like. I found the link to the video below very helpful when looking at the framing of characters:
Framing for people
This link would then help me when it came to filming the rest of my short film.
Day 2 of filming

By the next day of filming we had reflected on what we had struggled on in the last day and had this is in mind when filming on day 2. We chose to film scene 9 and then scene 6 on day 2 as we had this fresh in our minds and knew exactly what we wanted from our actors. Scene 9 went especially well, although this scene is very short we found it went really well, we improved on the sound as we didn't have such microphone issues and our framing was a lot more improved on. Therefore overall I felt that the filming of scene 9 went well. Scene 6 however proved more difficult after we had to change location. The first location we shot at proved to be difficult as we were close to a major road, this meant we had a lot of unneccessary background noise not only from passing cars but also from the local residents as we filmed just after school had finished. Therefore we then made the professional decision to move location, to somewhere more remote. The new location we filmed in was a lot better. It was very quiet and we wanted the location to reflect the fact the characters were alone and this definately did.
Day 3 of filming
After filming twice already we were confident in filming the next scene, which was scenes 4 and 7. Before going out to film these two scenes we were very jubious because we had lots of extras to cast for a football match. We had also planned the shots we wanted for filming however still couldn't imagine it visually and therefore felt we were not prepared. This meant we decided before we went out to film we needed to do some research. This meant we searched on YouTube to find how football scenes have been shot and this Kes was the most helpful.

This then made us feel more confident as we all not only had the written and technical parts to this scene in our heads but also the visual side as well. When it came to filming we struggled trying to organise a large number of extras. However we overcame this and decided to go for a naturalistic style and asked the actors to simply play a football match. While we gave our major actors more direction. This worked well and helped us to get some useful footage which looked natural and not staged. We also filmed scene 5 on this day, this was the fight scene and because of the extras we again was jubious because there was a lot more direction that needed to be given. This scene went reasonably well when filming we stuck to the shot list and made sure all actors and extras knew exactly what they needed to do. We got this scene done fairly quickly and I was particularly careful to make sure no one was hurt in the process.
Day 4 of filming

The last 2 scenes we filmed where scene 8 and 10. We started of with scene 8 which was a fairly simple scene to film compared to the scenes done before as we had no extras. The only problem we had was the lighting because we filmed on a bright day meaning there was unnecessary shadows caused on the character of Ashley. We also had trouble with the door to the changing rooms in both scenes using this location. This was because the door was quite heavy and made a loud noise when it slammed shut. This sometimes caused problems as the noise was prominently loud when the actors were speaking. This major problem lead us as a team and especially me as director to 'think on my toes' and think quickly meaning I then had to ask the actor to try and speak his lines after this disruption without it looking staged. Although this was difficult after a few takes of watcing it being acted out I felt that once we had made a few minor changes it finally worked and flowed. We then filmed scene 10, this was the main scene and the turning point and it was therefore important we got it right. Although this scene had very few shots we realised that our basic skills had almost 'been lost'. One of these was our shot reverse shot where our camera positioning was not quite right meaning when we came to re filming it needed to be right. To achieve the shot reverse shot we wanted I then did some research into what a shot reverse shot should look like.

This research then helped me when it came to going back and re- filming as I now knew what angle the camera should be at and how it should look. We also felt that we didn't like the way our film would finish as originally we had the camera tilt up towards the sky however when we tried to film this it didn't feel right so we decided to look at some editing techniques to see what we felt looked best to conclude our short film.

After reviewing everything that had been filmed and due to time issues as a group we decided to cut scene 3. Overall we felt that it didn't really have any significant importance to our film and wasn't an essential scene. For this reason and because of time pressures and trouble with actors we therefore made the decision to cut this scene.
Scene's needing re-filming

The scenes that needed re-filming were scenes 1 and 10 for reasons explained above. I felt that when it came to re-filming them it went a lot better.The main reason for this is because of my independant research where I looked at how it should be filmed and how it would look visually. When re filming scene 1 the framing was a lot better and a lot more improved and we also changed location to another toilet in the school. This cut out a lot of the sound issues and gave us a lot more space to position the camera. The second scene we re-filmed was scene 10. This was because the camera angle was wrong on the shot/reverse shot. We asked the teacher to look at this sequence as well and she gave us tips on how it needed to be changed which we did with great succession.