Major Project...part 1

This maybe one hell of a blog! I've been pretty tardy (slow/delayed, not slang for retard) with blogs for the major project. I started off well with my videos blogs, but once the project got more intense I began forgetting to blog. Has a group we have been working really hard starting at 10 am and not finishing till 8 pm, by the time I've got the bus home it's usually near 9 pm and I'm too tired to stare at a screen.

So, this is kind of back blogging... I'll probably forget something, thats the problem with not documenting that same day, your brain starts to drop the less important parts.

Anyway i'll try picking up where I left off. I think we'd just finished doing the rehearsals. Since then it's been hectic.

After the rehearsals we did some location scouting. We have been lucky enough to get the ALEA casino to agree to let us film the majority of the short there. The Alea is a bit too glam for what we originally wanted, but at the same time we would be fools to turn it down. For the sake of changing the script to fit casino it's worth doing.

Luck hasn't been on our side with casting the character of Kath. Graeme convinced his friend to play the part, although she wasn't what we originally wanted (much like the Alea) we had to adapt the script to fit. She also didn't want to do the naughty parts. However, a couple of days before shoot she caught flu, or something. We had to set the Kath schedule back, which we really didn't want to do, but instead of rushing it I said to the other two "let's get throught the shoot, get some order to the footage, start editing, break for the weekend and pick up on monday when we're refreshed" Also because Leeds Utd we're playing in the playoffs at the weekend, I was nervous about that never mind thinking about the project. I put the project to one side, but Graeme hadn't. We met on the Saturday to watch Leeds and he had re-written the scene with a man (Kev) instead of Kath. We have had too much trouble trying to cast a women in this role, so we decided it maybe better to make it a man. Again this didn't fit the story we originally wanted to tell, but we had to adapt for the situation we were in. We we're already behind half a week to the original schedule and couldn't wait. We thought it would be much quicker and easier to cast a menacing male. When Graeme put the call out he Advertised it as Kev/Kath and to our surprise we got a lot of interest from both male and female. A fellow student Jim Dunford recommended Helen from one of his previous shoots and before we could contact her she had already applied for the part. FADE. She was happy enough to come in the same day for a chat and a quick read through. We weren't really prepared for it, but what the hell we got her in anyway. Helen turned out great and was up for a quick shoot and was free on the day we wanted to film.

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Back a bit.
I'll miss out all the Kath problems and go straight on with the shoot.

On the morning of the shoot I surprisingly got up on time, which was becoming an issue, but I pulled my act together. However, our first problem came straight away when we got to college the equipment we had booked was not there, which turned our faces red! We had been planning the shoot for weeks, spent our whole easter break practicing with the equipment to make sure we could set up quick and get on with the shoot. Graeme had booked the equipment a week in advance and kept on asking and emailing to the day. We eventually got our equipment, but we were 45 minutes behind. When we got to the Alea and there were most of the actors there and some of the extras. That added some pressure to the start of the day and we all had to chill out quickly and get on with the job. Then we couldn't figure out the sound device, which took a good 20 minutes to get working.

Loads of extras turned up, about 15, which were great, felt amazing. After around an hour and half of fannying about we finally got the first shot set up. You could see that people were already beginning to get bored, so Graeme was doing his best to get around and talk to the extras he had brought and I was doing the same with mine, whilst we set up the shot. I left the camera stuff to Mark, which I think added to his pressure and possibly pissed him off. But that couldn't be helped. I quickly realised that doing a shoot of that size with that many people and lots of equipment needed more than three of us. We recruited friends to help with the boom mic and monitering the sound, but that didn't mean I hasn't thinking about it. I probably thought about it more because I wasn't directly doing it.

I ended up setting the lights up for the first shot, and I can honestly say lighting is not my strong point. This started it get to me when I couldn't get it right. I think the amount of time we were taking added pressure to Mark, because we hadn't filmed anything yet and you could see the actors getting bored and unsettled. I think he just wanted to start filming, but I wasn't going to start anything till I got it looking right, Once I stressed this to Mark, he and my step dad started helping me with the lights. We were massively behind and this was the busy day, with the most to do.

I don't think people will believe me when I say that was the hardest days work in my life. The next day our fatigue was low. We could barely walk. The second day shoot was nowhere near has intense. However, only 5-7 extras turned up. This made the shots extremely hard to get. We had to reuse people over and over again. It'll be funny watching it back, you'll be able to see the same extra lots of times in different places in the same sequence. Hopefully no-one will see.


More to come...
TO BE CONTINUED...