Production Diary

My filming will be divided into 3 days, for 4 scenes.

day 1 - scenes 1 and 4 - thursday 2nd april

intentions: 

to film the opening and closing scenes where max as 'the man' walks up and down the street.

description of filming: 

this was a fairly straight forward shoot as nothing particularily intricate was needed. no dialogue or changing stage directions were needed; i just needed the man to walk up and down the street. 

the problem of modern cars in the frame and driving up down the road was not a serious issue as it will not interfere with the film much. there were a few shots ruined by residents walking into the shot!

i shot the scene where the man walks away from the house towards the camera first. it was shot from ground level and only needed a few takes to get it completed. i tried different angles such as low and higher angles and where the actor should look in the shot. for the second scene i wanted a high angle so i bought a tripod which can be attached to most lamp posts, railings, trees etc and placed it halfway up a large lamp post. i left it filming and got the actor to walk up the street a few times before climbing up and checking the footage and adjusting the angle. after about 12 takes we had some decent footage and filmed the last scene which was a medium shot from ground level of the actor walking up to the house and i tried lots of different angles for this scene such as high and low angles and shooting from the other side of the street.

success:

 all three scenes were completed in about 10 takes each, just to give more variation in angles and different shots and i am happy with the footage.

day 2 - scene 2 - sunday 5th april

intentions: to film the longest scene which involves the actors max and paul as the man and the private investigator talking in the PI's office. 

filming description:

i decided to shoot the footage in chronological order as no order was needed for filming and it was easier for the actors to follow. i filmed about 5 - 10 takes of each shot because of the many different factors which would contribute to bad footage (framing, bad acting, forgetting lines, mispronounciation, sound issues, camera movement and shaky footage) and also to try different angles. generally the filming went well. running through the dialogue and stage directions with the actors as well as showing them where the camera would be before filming anything helped a lot so we were able to go ahead and start producing decent footage straight away.

success:

it took us about 3 hours with breaks to complete what i thought was a high standard of footage. around an hour was spent going through the motions with the actors before filming and then i was able to film all 14 different shots with different angles and many different takes fairly easily.

day 3 - scene 3 - monday 6th april

intentions: to film two shots where the man's wife appears in the doorway of the PI's office and they kiss. this is an important scene as it reveals an important twist in the story. the audience may or may not have seen this twist coming but the scene is also important as it suggests what route the PI is now going to take.

filming description:

it took around an hour to film these two shots because i tried many different angles and took many shots to ensure i had decent footage. it was also important, because of the gap in dialogue in this scene, that the acting was very natural and that took a lot of takes to get right

success:

i am happy with footage and although it was perhaps the hardest to film i feel the products are decent.