Since our time back at University after the Christmas break there have been a couple of changes to our production. As the producer I am responsible for noting down these changes and making sure everything is still going smoothly for the build up to production.
We booked out the camera, sound and lighting equipment with Ferg, however, we were only able to have one Panasonic, rather than the two that we would have liked. There was only one Panasonic left which we were lucky to receive. As a result of this, our camera assistant, Katthaliya, will be more of a runner on our shoot days. She may double up with roles and help with the sound and lighting, and watching for traffic when we are shooting outside, rather than actually having a camera herself like we wanted.
Before we started filming I received an email from one of our cast members, Sue. She said that she may know someone who is free on the Tuesday 19th to be the character, Mark, if we needed. We were initially going to have Alex's dad as Mark, due to the non speaking role being a small one, but Alex said that if we could find anyone else he would be very happy with that. As a result of this, when Sue suggested her friend I was intrigued to know more about him. I asked a few more questions to Sue about her friend before getting in touch with him, in case he wasn't quite right for the part. Al Sawyer is a support / background artist. He has experience as an extra, model, fashion stylist, TV presenter and radio presenter. Sue also sent over the photos below so I could put a face to the name. I liaised with Alex and he was happy to get Al on board. The only characteristic Alex wanted from the character of Mark was for him to be tall with a bigger build. This is because in the story Tim squares up to Mark without realising he is such a big man. We want Mark to be intimidating towards Tim so he gets scared and backs down before punching him. As I was very impressed with the photos that Sue sent over, and she said that Al was 6 foot 1in, which seemed like a good size to feel intimidating. I asked for Al's email address so once Sue informed him of the film I could contact him directly. It wouldn't be very professional if I continued contacting him through Sue. Although this is a student project, I aim to act as professional as I can throughout production.
Al Sawyer - Mark Hodges
Support / background artist
Development of production schedule
For the purpose of the pre-production package, I created a production schedule with the hopes of keeping to it throughout production. At the time, I accounted for each scene in the schedule. I tried to keep the it even by giving enough time for each scene. Obviously there are harder scenes to film and slightly simpler scenes. For example, the dog hit and owl punch scenes are more complex and may be more difficult to film than others, such as the conversation between Sheila and Luke when he drops the dead dog at her doorstep. With this in mind, I allowed enough time for each scene in the schedule. However, as we are leading up to the production stage of the film I decided it was best to liaise with Alex to find out exactly what order he wants to do the scenes on the more complex shoot days.
There are a couple of days, Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd, where we are only needing to shoot one scene, and therefore, the order is quite self explanatory. However, the first four shoot days consist of shooting more than one scene so I need to make sure the schedule is in the correct order. I spoke to Alex about the most complex shoot days, Wednesday 6th, Thursday 7th and Monday 18th, to find out what order he wants to complete the day in. He explained that he wanted to get the harder scenes out first, this was including the owl punch. As a result of this, the first scene to be shot on the Wednesday 6th is scene 11. This will take up the majority of the day and we will then finish with the only other scene that Mollie (the owner of the owl academy) is in. If the day goes to plan, we may only need Becky for that one day, this is why we have decided to get her scenes completed on one day. It wouldn't make sense to get her to come for half of one day and half of another - ideally we would like to get her scenes done together. Once Alex and I had established what scenes we wanted to do on the first day (scenes 11 and 8), it left scenes 7, 9 and 10 to be shot on the second day at the owl academy.
Scenes 7 and 9 are simply when Tim and Luke arrive at the academy and leave the academy after meeting Mollie. As these are the day shoots, these will be shot first on Thursday 7th, while the night scene is scheduled for after the sunset at 6pm. As we are planning on having a break between the day and night shoot, there will be the chance to prep for the night scene while it's getting darker. As we would be used to shooting in the day, it may be beneficial to prep and rehearse in the dark for both cast and crew.
On Monday 18th we will be shooting the dog hit scene. However, as we will be meeting at the house in Margate first, it makes sense to shoot the scene where Luke drops the bin bag off at Sheila's house first and then head to the road in Margate for the dog hit scene. Alex agreed so as a result of this, I have scheduled us to shoot scene 5 first (Sheila's house) and then continue onto scene 4 (dog hit). As scene 4 is more complex, it'll take the most time which is why there are two hours scheduled for this scene but only an hour for the other scenes due to be filmed on this day.
On Tuesday 19th, we are due to film at The Bell Inn. This day only consists of two scenes, one inside the pub and the other is outside in their car park. To start with I felt that these scene deserved the same amount of time as they are relatively equal, however, then I thought about the fact that we will be dealing with more people for scene 12 (inside the pub). Here we will have 5 members of cast and a few extras, whereas, outside we will only be working with 3 members of cast and no extras. As a result of this, I felt that scene 12 (inside the pub) may take longer with the fact that we will need to work with more people. There is also more than one thing going on in the scene. For instance, we will be explaining to Tim and Luke about what we want from them, while instructing Tess when to walk in and on top of this, we will have Sheila and Mark socialising in the background before Sheila notices Luke and Tim and instructs Mark to confront them. As a result of this, I have scheduled an extra hour for scene 12, allowing 3 hours for that scene, whereas the outside scene (scene 13) only has 2 hours.
As I said previously, the final two shoot days only consist of shooting one scene so I have scheduled just the one scene for each day. Ideally, these will be simpler scenes to end the production period on. On the last shoot day (Friday 22nd), we want to take some photos for the poster. This is why I have written 'scene 2 or poster photos' for the last two hours of that day. Taking the photos on this day would be ideal as we would already have the correct cast members with us. It will also help the budget as we would save money if we didn't need to pay for their travel for another time on top of the shoot days. However, making sure we get all of our filming finished is the priority for the shoot week, so if we run late on filming or change the plan to catch up with other filming on that last day then I will schedule a new day when we could take the poster photos. I am not prepared to compromise filming time for the poster photos as the quality of the film is more important, I would rather spend the money to get the two main characters back for the photos.
As I have reviewed the schedule with Alex there should be no more changes, and ideally we will be able to follow this successfully on the shoot days. Below is the updated production schedule:
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| Updated production schedule |
Once this was completed I sent it onto the cast to inform them of the changes to each shoot day. I did this immediately in order to give them about a month's notice so they can prepare themselves for the specific scenes we will be shooting on each day.
Reflection
- Reflecting on the production schedule, it would have made sense to decide exactly what scenes will be shot on each day with Alex during the pre-production stage, however, as production was still a while off even he wasn't completely sure which scenes we would be shooting on each day. As a result of this, I felt that it was easier to discuss the schedule with him after we had completed the pre-production package and when are minds were slightly clearer to work out the exact plan for the shoot days.
- I am confident in the fact that we will be able to follow the production schedule, and I have kept in mind the quality of our film. I have made sure our project is achievable by giving longer, more complex scenes a larger amount of time and shorter, more simpler scenes a smaller amount of time. I believe that I have been fair in my scheduling and that I have set a realistic timeframe for each scene.
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