DIRECTIONS: Shoot Day 1 & Feedback

Today was the first filming day. It started well with lovely, sunny weather and two out of three actors were able to make it. I will re-shoot this week for the actor who was ill and couldn't make it today. The day light was great for the first scenes we shot which were the car scenes outside, however, once we got inside we lost the light a little and being shut in a room made it darker also. This meant I had an orangey tint to my look but this wasn't the worst thing because I needed that golden tint like the original film which I spoke about in my previous post, Directions: New Moon Colour Palette.

I knew I had to make sure I get enough footage to make the 6 minute requirement as my script was a bit short. I'm hoping I managed to get enough footage but I will put the rough cut together tomorrow to get a rough idea of how long it will be, therefore, if I am slightly short then during the re-shoot I can get more footage.

I had the scenes played out in my head and they didn't go exactly the same but they went really well. We didn't expect the sun to be so strong considering it was the first bit of sun we have had this year, so it made the car scenes really bright. This was a tiny problem as one actor was always in front of the sun which made his face really dark and the other actor had the sun in her eyes, luckily the sun hid behind some clouds which weakened it.

The following day we had our feedback sessions. Mine was with Mike Rymer and he was really helpful considering as I only had a couple of scenes edited together. He explained to me about editing the dialogue scene with Charlie and Bella only when the action happens, not just because there was a line of dialogue by the other person. I knew about this from other lectures but haven't actually applied it yet to my work so I didn't really think about it. He quickly edited two shots like this and I realised it did make a massive difference, the story flowed better and the cuts weren't as obvious, we were watching the characters with the action rather than just switching back and fourth when someone spoke. Mike also said that one of my shots was over exposed and recommended it to be re-shot. This wasn't a problem because I extended the equipment time with Ferg just before and had planned to re-shoot anyway.

Being able to edit it and then plan the re-shoot was helpful because it was good to see if my shots were right, for example, I noticed the shot that was over exposed (thankfully) was quite boring anyway. This has given me a chance to think about how I could make it more interesting for the audience and redo it.

I was very happy with my feedback from Mike and went straight to plan my re-shoot and to contact my actress again.