The Heist - Camera B

Completely forgot to put this on my blog. I went down to The Heist filming today. After their first lot of filming went down the drain, they decided to film a short scene. I offered to help out and they said I could operate another camera so they get more filmed in a shorter amount of time. I went down shortly after dinner and they were already set up. I stood around waiting for about half an hour, then asked what I should do. I was told to set up the camera and they asked their main camera op where I should put it. Then I was told not to touch it and he would do it. I tried to argue my case and said it would save time, but they were having none of it. So I took some of their food and drink and left. What could I do? I was very annoyed at the time I wasted there, they could have told me half an hour ago that I wasn't needed or even before the shoot. I did take a few production stills for their blogs and just to say I was there.

Tag - What Have I Learnt?

Even though Tag did get a self contained scene filmed (with a few minor issues), pre production for the whole film itself failed due to a number of reasons which I will discuss in this post and will be as self-critical as possible;

1) Communication. Probably the biggest issue we had. I have no idea why, probably due to this film being our 'secondary roles', we may have lost a bit of enthusiasm for Tag. To be honest, I did, I was getting very tired of actors and locations dropping out (it's never been this bad before). 

2) Drop outs. A LOT of locations and actors dropped out or had issues (e.g. going into surgery and loosing both arms (worst continuity error ever)) The Grand Hotel take paid bookings up to the day before which resulted in a lot of cancelled shoots. So we decided to do the self contained scenes with few but reliable actors and with an easily replaceable location.

3) Indecisiveness. A lot of the time, for actors and locations, the director did not get back to me and did not like a lot of the suggestions. For Oren's apartment, there was 3 places in mind. The first dropped out, and the other two were not good enough so the director cancelled the shoot. I could have took initiative and filmed anyway, but I did not want to take over job roles. 

4) Organisation? Some people may say it failed due to poor organisation, but like I said, I had multiple backups for each location. I also have lots of paperwork on the VLE as proof of all the work I did. I am usually quite organised, but I do get stressed easily (this module was no exception). I even said I didn't want to produce ever again after Bad Luck, but I still gave it my all and ended up doing more for Tag than Circus. 

5) It was still alright on the night and we filmed! The atmosphere on set was great and it was a fun day of filming. I am glad we have still managed to finish something, and we could come back to it next year as a Final Major.

Circus - What Have I Learnt?

Cirque du Muerte has been completed in full and was a success. Even though it did do very well, I will also talk about improvements and what did go wrong.

1) Teamwork. This was very strong in this production, with the director saying she had her "dream team". We are all very organised and got on with research straight away. Me and the director work particularly well together, and coming up with similar suggestions. We has quite a few meetings to discuss shot lists and I would suggest how we could achieve them. I also suggested a few shots, sometimes on the day. My favourite shot of the Hook-A-Duck stall owner as a canted angle (on a slider) was suggested by myself on the day and looks amazing. 

2) Organisation. Even though this worked, this could have been improved. The director knew what she wanted from the actors, but not from the camera. I suggested a few shots of what the director had pictured (we seem to be good at this), but it would have been more helpful if we had finished storyboards so I could see visually what the director wanted. We also had issues with sound equipment over Easter, so communication here would have helped, and we could have avoided recording in camera.

3) Keep pushing! We were going to drop the trombone shot due to how hard and difficult it was, but we still tried, even after the clown dropped out (so we ended up doing it for about 3 shoots). The jib shot was also difficult to execute but we kept trying and did multiple takes at the end of the day until the card filled up. 

4) Continuity. We had to scrap some of my favourite shots due to continuity errors. On a big scale set, one person would be in charge of it, but we left it to the actors and the director, and said to everyone "feel free to go of script, but stick to your words and gestures for the scenes after that". It didn't go well. I'm not sure how we can avoid this in the future (since we are all busy doing our own jobs), we will just have to edit around it.

Tag - Updated List of Festivals

I have decided to update the list of possible festivals to enter Tag into due to the length and nature of the film changing. I will look at the previous ones I have listed and see if they will still accept a film that is around 5 minutes long.

East Coast Film Festival (https://filmfreeway.com/festival/EastCoastFilmFestival)

Submissions: May 31st - August 31st (free for students!)
Location: Skegness
Specifications: Films to be made in or after 2014. 
Awards: Best Short, Best Short Short, Best Trailer
Festival Date: September 9th

FrightFest (http://www.frightfest.co.uk/)

Submissions: July 1st - August 17th (£12 fee)
Location: London
Specifications: Online submission. Under 10 minutes. 
Awards: Can't find any information.
Festival Date: 24-28th August

Feel The Reel (https://filmfreeway.com/festival/FeelTheReelInternationalFilmFestival)

Submissions: May 4th - May 27th (£10 entry for students)
Location: Glasgow
Specifications: Up to 40 minutes. Made in or after 2014.
Awards: Best Student Film (free trophy), also different category and individual awards
Festival Date: May 31st


Other potential festivals:

https://filmfreeway.com/festival/TMFF (very similar to Feel the Reel, £12 entry, same deadlines)
https://filmfreeway.com/festival/Sunday-shorts (London, £3 entry, May 14 deadline)
https://filmfreeway.com/festival/LondonX4ComedyFilmFest-936350 (London, £5 entry, June 19 deadline)
https://filmfreeway.com/festival/HellfireShortFilmFestival (Kent, £4 student entry, June 17 deadline)
https://filmfreeway.com/festival/HighPeakIndependentFilmFestival (Manchester, £12 (there is a discount code on the site for 25% off), June 24 deadline)

*UPDATE* I have uploaded Tag into a few festivals but have had nothing but rejections back. 

Tag - Filming!

Today is our first/last day of filming the new self contained scene. One of the actors turned up a little late, but we were still setting up. We were going to put up wallpaper for the fake blood, but it was too distracting and you could tell it was held up by blu tac, so we just made sure it was okay with the location owners if we could use it on the wall and that it was washable. 

I posted flyers and put up posters saying to not be alarmed if you hear screams or noises. I also talked to the dentist next door and they were fine with it and enthusiastic too! I also did catering the night before, but no one seemed to eat the food (sigh, I put a lot of effort into the food, guess that just means for me to eat as leftovers). I also acted today as Rachel which was a challenge. Acting petrified is hard, but I think I did okay and the director seemed happy. The blood was super sticky and I had to leave it on my face just in case I was in shot later on. So all the paperwork is super sticky (sorry guys, but they are all scanned in on the VLE and are significantly less sticky). 

Overall the shoot today went very smoothly. We did leave quite a bit of equipment at location by accident, but we did have a lot to carry, we have picked it up since. We were also using Jack's camera to film at the start, but the battery died and we had to use mine which was a little bit similar. The look of the film may differ because of it, so it was not ideal, but we couldn't really do much else as we didn't have Jack's charger.

Circus - That's a Wrap!

We had a few reshoots to do to make the edit look smoother today (we were very lucky to get the actors back), including one of the knife thrower doing a faster throw and one of Sophie looking shocked/bewildered when the knife hits the board *no small children were hurt during the shoot, but Liam maybe scarred for life* as it looked very orange last time and we weren't sure why. Turns out it was because the gel was too strong and make it look orange on camera, so we toned it down using scrim (hopefully it wont be too much of an issue with continuity). 

We then got the Zoltar card shot and some mannequin cutaways and hands/stumps clapping. The shoot went quite well and was not stressful as we knew what we exactly we needed to help the editor out. And we are now officially wrapped filming on Circus, now I can focus on filming Tag tomorrow and doing my evaluation! 

We also had a small photoshoot with Sophie for the poster which looks terrifying, but I enjoyed doing taking the pictures for it. 

Circus - Ringmaster Shoot

Today is our last scheduled shoot!!!! We set up early and ended up waiting around a while until the actor arrived, got changed and did make up. We then got filming at about 11, everything still set up. We got all the slider shots done first since we were a little behind schedule as someone else wanted it on the afternoon. We then got the close ups (on the monopod, we did this for most of the close ups so I could track everyone's movement). Went smoothly, and we ended with people clapping for foley.

We quickly looked back at the edited footage so far and there are two concerns; a cutaway of the Zoltar card and also the scene about arguing whether to go to the show. The wide has completely different lighting to the close ups (we tried our best to recreate it but I guess it wasn't good enough, time may have been a issue here), so the editor had to use all close up shots, but we only have one of Sophie. The scene drags and needs something else to cut to. So we will have to go to Production Design for these last shots next week for an hour or so. 

The actor playing the Ringmaster took a few pictures on his camera so I hope he will send us them! (I didn't bring mine in, and we were rushed for time once again)

Circus - Knife Throwing and End Scene

Today we got the knife scene in the big show done. We did lots of test footage for this so we knew what we needed, including one shot we didn't get last time. We got a lot of shots today, including a really nice lens flare of the knife against the red head with a red gel. 

After that, the actor playing the Dad arrived and went to the director's house to do the final scene. We took all the equipment over in the pouring rain, and set up. It did take us a while to figure out lighting as when we imitated the lighting in the living room, it shone against the window (we ended up having to live with this as literally everywhere we put it, you could see the shine. We will just say it's from a lamp). We also had another one to imitate the TV (we put a blue gel on it, but it didn't do anything, so we just used scrim on it). We got a few wide shots and some really tricky ones which were a pain to get. 

One of them was a low angle shot, including a pull focus from the remote to Sophie's face, her delivering her line (static) then sliding forward, focusing (as it kept loosing focus) and moving the camera so her eyes were central framed. It took a while, so we decided to cut it up and maybe cut to a cutaway in edit, so now it's just the remote pull focus, cut, and then the slider shot of Sophie's eyes. I'm not sure if it worked still, so we will have to find out. We ended up having to use Moshi Monster plasters to we knew where to pull focus to.

We also struggled to get a shot of the dolls in the case. I did say to get the shelves as it would look better and would have been easier to get. Basically, we had to slide really close to the Lacee doll (slider was on a high angle), slide up, keep focus and also move it so the case would be in shot. We ended up getting one possible good take but we may have to reverse it in post. We also got a few static ones just in case.

Circus - Big Show Cutaways, Pick Ups and Car Scene

Today was the last day we had Lacee and Dad so we got all their cutaways in the big show (e.g. them walking up for each act, coming back, walking into the show, etc) and also Lacee's doll scene without the make up (as it comes on magically half way through). Went well, no issues. We were originally going to do the car scene first, but we couldn't get the LED's.

After the show cutaways, we did the car scene. Went well, even if it was a bit cold. The fact we shot it during the day maybe an issue so we may have to do "day for night". 

We had to go back to the big show as we forgot one cutaway, then we got some pick up shots the editor wanted at the circus set. We were very tired and rushed so we did them as quickly and as best to our ability as we could. 

Special thanks again to Tori for helping us out on sound today. Didn't get a lot of production stills today as we were very busy.

Tag - An Update!!!

We have had a meeting with one of the lecturers to discuss what to do about Tag as we will not be able to get it all done in the next two weeks. We have decided to do a 'self contained' scene that tells the entire story in one scene. We have decided to film scene 11 with Oren, Rachel and Sam (with Rachel and Sam's death scenes). This is the biggest scene which will be about 5 minutes in total so we would need a whole day filming. We were originally going to be filming this Friday but we could only get one of the actors for half a day so we have rescheduled to Wednesday next week. It is a shame it has come to this, but extreme circumstances has called for extreme measures. Again, it was more of a final major to be able to pull it off successfully.

We have decided to use my student digs but we will have to put up wallpaper and a rug so the fake blood won't stain the paint or the carpet. I am also buying the costumes for the actors. I have asked someone on the crew to look for washable fake blood just in case some does get on the wall and carpet. I am also buying food, costume, wallpaper, rugs, and props in the next week and will keep a hold of budget.

Circus - Some Possible Issues

While the editor was doing the skeleton edit, there was a few errors about continuity and movement in shot. They have made a list of what we are missing and I have put forward what I personally will think will work visually and also that won't involve a lot of actors or make up. On a huge set, people would be in charge of continuity as their only job role (we also had a huge issue with this for Allurement and it's the same actor!) 

We are having a meeting later to discuss what issues there are, what would look visually better and what we will have to compromise with.

Circus - Big Show Filming

Today we filmed most of the big show scene at the end of the film. Most of the actors were late and it took us longer than we thought to set up, so we didn't start filming until 11. The director had to go home then, so I had to direct (but I rang/messaged her for important stuff) today as well as do camera. Special thanks to Tori for doing sound, Chloe for doing production logs as well as just helping out in general, and Beth for taking a few production stills.

It all went really well. I wasn't very familiar with the script due to various updates and new dialogue so the actors helped me out with their lines so I knew when to get a close up. I'm thankful to them for being patient with me and everything went really smoothly. We need a few more pick up shots of Lacee without her doll make up and shots with Sophie as we couldn't get her this day.

Circus - WORMS

We were lucky enough to get into the Uni to film over Easter so we went in today to do more shots of the circus (we were going to do close ups of the street and the trombone shot, but we were strapped for time. We were also going to film tomorrow but we couldn't get the actors for long.)

We were also given a dodgy tripod which even though locked off, moved. So Beth had to step in to hold the slider and the legs in place. This also put more time on the shoot and was an inconvenience.

We were slow to start due to make up, so I got a LOT of cutaways (I was filming them non stop for about 2 hours). We then did a close up of Sophie with the tickets. We then did the candy cart scene and some clown shots. We got quite a lot of shots done on the morning! Even Liam had a cameo!

The most chaotic part of the shoot was at the end. The director went to get worms for the match cut of the strawberry laces at around 2. The caretakers then suddenly said that they were closing at 3:40 (we were told we could film until 5) so we rushed to get all the shots with the worms done as they may not live another day (one sadly got beheaded in the process of dropping the cup, RIP). 

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/cce150d9-567f-4c8b-af9e-122a193e189c/gif

Overall, filming went well. Organisation could have been a bit better, such as letting us know sooner we had to be done by 3:40. Me and the director are coming in tomorrow to tidy up. I'm slightly concerned if the shots can be edited together as they join onto certain scenes and lighting or the 180 degree line may differ. We were careful about continuity, so this should be fine (I worry all the time so it's probably fine). Brad was kind enough to film some behind the scenes shots (I did some for him yesterday, so was a whole "I scratch your back" thing) and even Tillie got a few pictures (most are out of focus, the rest are not relevant to the production).

Tag - Doomed to Fail?

Today we were supposed to be filming the very first scene at the Grand Hotel for Tag, but quite a few issues happened resulting in having to cancel the shoot. Firstly, our original actors dropped out on the Friday as they couldn't make the Tuesday, so I put out an emergency casting call. There was little interest, and no one willing to send in any previous work so I could see that they can act (as this scene is very dialogue heavy). I emailed The Grand on the Monday (no actors confirmed) to confirm we had the room tomorrow but the roof maintenance is taking longer than expected so we could no longer film in there (not sure how long for). So, hopefully we can film it again after Easter and with the original actors.

I still haven't heard back from the actor going into surgery (it was supposed to be a few weeks ago, he's also away at the end of the month, and has a lot of work on. I will try and get him in one day to do his last scene, as long as he still has both arms). 

On a plus note, we finally have a Sam! So we can organise his and Oren's scenes after Easter. We just need to find and confirm a location. 

Quick side note, I also went in yesterday (on my Birthday) to be an actor for The Heist (brownie points? haha)

Circus - Send in the Clowns!

Today we did a few more scenes in the Circus with our newly cast clown! We did the carriage scene (minus the polaroid), hook a duck, and also when Sophie shows her Dad the tickets. We also had a few more people to fill up the hook a duck and a stall owner (who is also the knife thrower, but we can get away with it as he has a shirt over his eyes or something for the knife throwing). 

Make up did take a while, I suggested getting some clown shots while the stall owner gets his make up done, but the director needed to go and see if the makeup was what she wanted. I think next time we are getting the clown in early (or late) to get the trombone shots again. We only had time to shoot one shot (8 takes though) of the carriage on the morning.

We got straight back into it after dinner and got the remainder carriage shots, the hook a duck stall, and some of the ticket scene (we stopped as one of the actors was getting restless and it was effecting performance), so next time, we will have to grab some close ups!

Minus a lot of drama from today, the shoot itself went really well. The make up today was stunning and the shots also look fab! I can't wait to see the edited product.

Tag - A Quick Update

Got a message very early morning today saying we can't shoot at the house we had planned to as the guy is away and is also away for Easter. I wanted to get something filmed with Detective Haggard this week as he goes into surgery soon so time is off the essence. I suggested my place (but the big number on the glass is an issue) and Hutton Halls (good, but it's a very big front door, and could also be an issue over Easter). We decided to call it off to sort out another location with a smaller door and that didn't look too grand. The director said he was going to sort out something for tomorrow, but I'll be honest, I can't get equipment booking and risk assessments out that fast as I was on Circus all day. 

Progress has again, slowed down, and is really stressing me out (I am not cut out to be a producer, but I have been trying my best!) 

Circus - Street Shoot #2 and Circus

Today we planned to do some of the circus (sadly without the clown as we have had to recast). We also had to redo the tracking dolly street shot again as looking back at it yesterday, it was a bit of a mess. 

Weeeeeeee

Thanks to Beth for this video!

We did a few takes (close up and wide) but if I got it so all three of the actors were in, we could see the classroom no matter what. So we fixed this by finding a curtain and putting boxes on the floor. 

Our producer sticking up the curtain

11 takes later, we moved on to the circus shots. There was a huge white block in the middle of it, but it could be moved (luckily! They also refrained from putting music on for us for sound). We did the Zoltar scene first and the director came up with a new trippy angle involving the crystal ball on the right side of the frame (to dirty the shot) and using the slider to get a close up of Lacee. We had to put the crystal ball on top of some ladders, on top of some duct tape, on top of a container (sadly no pictures of this!) and the shot itself looks pretty impressive. 

The director directing Lacee

Moving onto the next scene, where the Dad gives Sophie money for sweets and the rides. This took some time as batteries were running out. And we needed to buy strawberry laces. 

Tillie helping me dirty up the pick and mix cup so it fits with the aesthetic

Actors also needed to hit marks spot on otherwise they went out of frame. It took a few takes, but we got it. We also did each scene with various angles, close ups and cutaways. We also did a demon eye cutaway for the editor to play around with.

Overall, a good days shoot! Can't wait to look back at the edited footage. 

*update* Turns out some of the close ups for the street scene have a tiny soft focus. It was hard to focus as they were moving around a lot, ideally I would have a focus puller, as I could not tell and I was busy tracking the actors.

Circus - Street Shoot

Today we filmed some of the street scenes (apart from the Clown since we can't get hold of the actor, so we may have to recast and do the trombone shot again (noooooooooo)). One of the actors turned up a few hours late and another one had to be done by 1:30 so this wasn't the best of starts, but we got everything set up and we were finished on time for the actor to leave.

We were going to do the jib shot with the actors walking in, however, the focus is completely out for the actors and I can't change it as it's too high and I will be operating the jib. So we decided to do this last and without the actors.

Credit to Janice for the picture

We did the dolly shots and also a few close ups so there's variation to cut between. I'm slightly worried that the dolly has some of the classroom next door into it and also the framing might be a little off, but I can't tell until we watch it back. *small update- yep this did happen, but the wider angle looked better than it zoomed in as I got everyone in... even if I did get some of the classroom in. If the Dad moves slightly to his right, it may cover it. We will probably have time to reshoot tomorrow, and hopefully with better sound*

Sound was also a huge issue. We asked if they could keep quiet for a minute when we call "silence on set", but they didn't and drills and all sorts kept going off. Dubbing maybe a good option here. 

We only got one production still today sadly (we had our hands a bit full).

Gerry and The Cancelled Street Scene

Just realised the title of this post sounds like a Harry Potter movie title.

Anyways, we filmed Tag on the morning, which went well even though we had a bit of a late start. Nothing much really to report apart from the interrogation scene is DONE!!!!!!!

I helped the director put gels on our cardboard cut out of the goblin (now baptised as Gerry the Generic Goblin), so it would look awesome as a silhouette and with a light shining through it.

We got the equipment for filming on the night out in plenty of time in advance as we got pretty such all of stores out. It's a good thing we did too as there was a screw missing from the jib. After everything was set up, me, and both the sound op and boom op waited at Production Design for a bit them realised that the actors were being a while. We headed back over and realised we were missing the actor who plays the girlfriend. We waited an hour after call time to see if she would turn up or contact us. She didn't, so we had to call it off, and possibly recast.

Here's proof of all the equipment being up 

Circus - Car Scene

Today we filmed the car scene. It was all going really well, all the actors arrived and we had all the equipment out. And then it started torrential raining. We persevered and still filmed (as much inside the car as possible, and covered the equipment where it was possible). We did originally want to use red heads as streetlights but could no longer do this today due to the rain. 

We also couldn't do production logs or production stills due to to the weather and lack of bodies willing to go out in the rain (which is understandable). We just wanted it all done quickly and well, and get warm! We made sure the actors were also warm.

We were done fairly quickly since we have done so many test shoots of the car scene before, so we knew what we wanted and could be done really fast. We looked at the footage back on Friday and most of it looks great in my opinion (the slider shot was very dark though). The lecturer wasn't very happy with the lighting and the windows of the buildings outside (and also the make up), and now that the actress hasn't turned up to the next day's shoot, and has gone incommunicado, we may have to recast. 

I will update this post with screenshots of the clips, or maybe the edited scene, even though it maybe irrelevant.