Short Story In Brutality Shooting day2

SECOND SHOOTING DAY

Our second shooting day was pretty well scheduled and shot listed, we arranged when to meet actors and left time for travel and it looked as though things would go really well, unfortunately we did not stick to the schedule.

TIME SCENE SHOT DESCRIPTION ACTORS LENGTH
4.30 Meet at uni (Joel Jon Jordan Christi Joe)
5.00 4 1 CU hand wash track up to face. J 4s
5.10 4 2 Blood drip from hand to hand. J. 3s
5.20 4 3 Shot from inside sink. J. 2s
5.30 4 4 Tap Running J. 3s.

Walk to won ting

Meet at won ting ALL CREW AND ACTORS

6.00 2 2 Won Ting meeting from Car park roof N.J.R.
6.30 2 3 Tunnel walking from light to dark N.J.R.
6.45 2 4 Coming out of the Tunnel High angle up steps, they walk towards cam, Dean lurking at bottom N.J.R.

Walk to Christi's

7.15 2 5 Her entering a house, him stopping and looking down at the ring. N.J.R.
7.25 2 7 ECU Ring box J.
7.30 2 9 CU Deans face J.
7.40 2 6 Wine being poured. N.R.
7.50 2 8 Candles lighting N.R.

8.00 3 1 Deans legs foreground framing the bed. N.J.R. 4s
8.15 3 2 Cam behind Couple in bed framing Dean (reverse of shot 1) N.J.R. 3s
8.20 3 3 MedLong Dean walking over and punching Tom to the ground and pushes Jenny to the floor N.J.R. 5s
8.25 3 4 Jenny cutaway crying R. 2.s
8.30 3 5 POV from Tom Dean climbing ontop J.N. 4s
8.40 3 6 Wide shot of the fight J.N. 3s
8.45 3 7 POV Dean J. 3s
8.50 3 8 POV Tom N. 3s
8.55 3 9 POV Jenny J.N. 3s
9.00 3 10 Blood Splatter cutaway N. 3s
9.10 3 11 Profile shot of fight J.N. 6s
9.20 3 12 360 shot J.N.R. 6s

We met 30 minutes late for a start because Jordan was late but we had enough people to carry all the kit and had enough time to walk to the set and start filming, we were hoping to squeeze the bathroom scene in before anything else. I left us about 30mins for first set up and then 10mins for each set up, with the 30mins late and without the set being dressed before we arrived we had no time to shoot so we left Christi behind to with Joel for help with set dressing and moved onto the outside stalking scenes. The other thing that held us up was the discussion about the mirror…. This may be a little confusing as it has never before been mentioned but Christi, Jordan and Joe all wanted a shot of a mirror being smashed, framing Amy, the reverse smash would look really cool but it presented time issues. I really love the idea but there is no time in the film, we scripted and shot listed a 2min film and didn’t have time for it in the film. Secondly we didn’t have any time on the day to shoot it, being over an hour behind already this really pushed us behind. I argued that it wasn’t worth it but was overruled so left it to be set up whilst we were away, as we were on location we didn’t need lights so they could be set up so we could be as quick as possible when shooting the next scene.

We got to the next location just on time and efficiently shot absolutely everything exactly to schedule (minus the 1.5hours behind from the last scene). We shot every shot we wanted exactly to the shot list and with the extra camera picked up alternatives. This was probably the most successful part of the shoot, we used the hand cam light really well and directed the public a little so that nobody was in shot, it all went really well. It was cold and raining a little but was successful.

When we got back not everything had been dressed and the lights weren’t set. We also spent 30mins whilst light setup was going on debating whether or not to add a scene, Joe already had a lot of cutaways and with the additional mirror shot I disagreed again. The shot Jordan and Amy wanted was of “Dean” breaking into the house after Tom and Jenny. To me this wasn’t necessary because you have seen him following and there is no easy way for him to break in, if we don’t show it the audience will most likely connect the dots in a more believable way than we could film it. It was taking too long to argue about it so I backed down so we could film it and move on, which we did, briefly, after looking at the edit we think we will cut it.

Lights, camera and set were still not completely ready and we spent a really long time setting up shots randomly. By this point we were way behind schedule but everyone refused to follow the schedule or shot list. This meant we just grabbed random shots we could, it was much less efficient and much less cinematic. We muddled through and I did everything I could to help, adding blood, helping with lighting and other odd jobs.

We were hours behind schedule but began shooting the final scene in the bathroom (the first scene) Jordan asked for the shot list (for the first time) so I left him to it and started packing up the equipment and saying goodbye to the actor that had finished. I hope that the footage was good but the bathroom was too small for so many people, Joe, Christi and Jordan seemed to have things under control and I felt maybe it would be ebst for me to step out. At this point it was 12 rather than the proposed finishing time of 9.30. I am extremely grateful to the actors for staying as long as they did and working as hard and well as they did I was genuinely impressed. I was actually embarrassed by the amount of wasted time, it felt unprofessional and unorganised and we wasted a lot of the actors time.

I personally found the day really frustrating, too many people were fighting over lighting which we had already discussed, too much arguing over what to shoot despite our extensive shot list and too much wasted time talking and discussing when we had a good plan. I didn’t put the plan together from nowhere, we had had a really productive session in which we discussed it all and planned it together, it felt like those discussions were needlessly repeated on set.