The Day of the Shoot

Overall the shoot went very well. We started at 9 and took 7 hours, resulting in about half an hour of footage, which will be edited to end up as 3-4 minutes.
We went in to the studio to find our set built. It consisted of 2 rooms, as we planned. One with a window boarded up, with light coming through onto a bed Tamara had bought and we had attempted to wreck with a hammer the day before giving it a worn feel. The other a dark room, with no windows, and no light. On the walls was some paint smeared and it looked really unrealistic and rushed, so with the time we had I mixed some red and a small amount of brown and black paint, and JJ and I began to flick paint over the walls to look like blood spatters. We ended up covering all 3 walls. My mum and sister were coming in to do the make up, but were held up a little bit causing a delay. When they arrived at 9:30 they went straight on the make up. Rory was one of the first to get his make up, making him look like he was drugged and bruised. This gave us time to take several shots of him doing his actions in the first room while the others' make up was still being finished. Tamara made sure the other actors were where they needed to be, those who needed it were getting their make up, and also made sure they were all blue carded.
While waiting for the other actors, we recorded sounds of objects hitting the floor for when the table is knocked over, like nails, metal poles, a glass and a torch, using the boom mic, and Tom considered shots and put Rory in different areas of the room and looked at them on camera.
It took about 2 hours for the make up to be done, so we were behind schedule as we had only recorded a few minutes of footage and 3 hours had passed since the beginning of the shoot. The actors playing the bodies came down and they were arranged against the wall to look like they were piled up. Duct tape was put over the victims mouths. in the hour we had before the lunch break, we worked quickly to get all the shots of the torch light going around the room and the discovery of the bodies, and where Rory pulls the tape off one of the victims and it wakes up. we had to work quickly as some of the victims would not be available after 1:00pm.
When everyone returned at 2:00, we took a few final shots of the victims, of their faces and of them waking up. we were then able to dismiss the victims and continued to take more shots of Rory. We filmed him falling through the door using the tracks, following his movement from one room into the other. We also took one of the first shots in the scene, an aerial view of him lying on the bed before waking up which JJ took from the lifting machine. We also recorded some more sounds like the shuffling of feet on the floor.
Finally at the end of the shoot which went a little passed 3pm, we had recorded over 30 mins of footage. Te day went well and despite certain hold ups, the group worked efficiently and we got everything we needed finished. Tom worked as a great director, but was a little too enthusiastic towards the end of the day. Other issues included JJ having to try the tracking shot several times before getting the timing right, but this was a minor issue and didnt take too long to overcome, and JJ was very good the rest of the time.

Pre-production Effectiveness

As a whole I think we were a very well organised group. Each member of the group contributed well and suited their role in the group well. Everyone contributed in some way towards props and costumes, as well as making sure the set and actors would be ready for the day.
One of the best aspects of our pre-production was that Tom's idea was very solid from the start. The idea was changed in some areas but mainly stayed the same, while other groups had to change a lot or even re-think their whole idea completely. This allowed us time to work on other important parts of the planning like storyboards and the treatment earlier than others.
The worst part was that we had all of the planning done but we didnt have it all together in the folder until very late in the planning process, so we couldnt easily find out information about our shoot when we needed it. Also the shooting schedule was written very late as well, so when we knew what we were doing, we had no real idea of when we were doing it on the day and what order we were doing each part in.

Shooting Schedule

We planned the schedule to have all shots of the bodies except for a few reaction shots done in the first half of the day, ie. before lunch. After lunch was meant to be the time where we shot Rory in the first room, his reaction shots and the little part of him in the second room without the bodies. This would mean we could use the actors playing the bodies in the morning and dismiss them in the afternoon.

Final Cast List

Along the way there were many changed to the cast list. These were the people we used on the day:

Main Protagonist:
Rory Skeoch

Victims:
-Bea Campbell
-Cate Hoare
-Elly Sams
-Gemma Dyer
-Gabby Meech
-Lainy Black
-Lottie Tolhurst
-Lukas Dressler
-Oscar Mitchell Heggs
-Jamie Hajigeorgiou

Costumes and Props

All of the props were sourced locally. Tom bought the costumes, which were just everyday clothes from Cranleigh, which, later in the evening, he scrunched and begun to tear up. Tamara bought a bed which we all smashed and beat with hammers and poles to give it a worn and old feel. I brought in a mattress and sheets for it. The torch was from the theatre department. In the morning my mum and sister came in to do the make up for the actors, which was very good especially on such short notice.

Scheduling Conflict

Our main protagonist, Alex Poynter, had an exam on the day we were shooting. He wasnt able to be in the shoot so it was decided that we would use Josh Jackson as the protagonist instead. However this was never a definite choice so Tom continued to ask people to be the lead. Eventually we had Rory Skeoch as our protagonist which we were all pleased with.