telltale_shu

Yesterday we spent pretty much all day in the gallery, leaving at 10pm. When we left the setup was complete barring the mirrors on the floor but it only needs about five minutes work today before the opening. Everyone worked extremely hard yesterday and it was worth it, it looks fantastic. We played the film after the sound and mirrors were all set up and we were extremely proud of the effect it has. I discovered that there is another exhibition on at the same time which may be less secure for our equipment, but we discussed it and Lauren decided she'd rather have the publicity over tight security, wo we will just have to keep a keen eye on set. I feel as if the opening will be a success and I am immensely proud of the work that everyone has into the project.

We watched the most updated version of the edit, it is coming along but there are a few tweaks still and more shots need adding to it. The quality was slightly grainy but it was probably just the laptop we were watching it on rather than the actual film. The overlapping images have now been made black and white under Chris' advice, and it does seperate them from the main shot a little.

We also introduced Liam to the project, as our new camera assistant. His role will be to document the installation when it comes round, so we sent him off with some research to do so he knows what he is expected to come up with. We also discussed the exhibition opening night guest list, and came up with a rather long set of guests already. It is clear that once we have asked all members of the crew we will have too many guests but we can cut it down to the essential people.

Unfortunately Chris has become unavailable to us so we weren't able to show him our film but I think we are sorted as to what we are supposed to be doing. Lauren and Alister have decided that they will be getting on with the sound over Easter and we shall arrange a meeting with Ron when we get back so he can see how it is coming together.

- Holly

WED 24/02/10

Filming in the studio was in new experience for me, but I think we managed quite well. I did feel that we perhaps had too many assistants for what we were trying to do, but on the whole it went rather smoothly. My timetable was lacking a little as we finished ahead of schedule by a fair amount, so the following day Lauren I had a look at it and wrote a new timetable which fitted a lot more shots in. I felt that the best part of this day was that the actors seemed to get straight in, and with Lauren's direction, they got straight to what we needed and understood the piece. There was good communication on set between the crew,and when it came down to it everyone got on with what they were supposed to to a satisfactory degree.

THU 25/02/10

We started off in the graveyard, and the bad weather wasn't far behind. The weather forecast had been for snow,so I was glad that it didn't turn out as such. The rain was an annoyance and the crew were grumpy,but thanks to Lauren I's timetable we were there for less time than we would have been with my original timetable. A few shots were cut, but if we had stayed much longer with the weather it would have been a lot harder to film the scenes in the bathroom in the afternoon as the tension would have been higher. There was also an issue with the surroundings being non too clean, which didn't help the actors relax. It was the worst day for filming, merely because we were outside in the rain and it was cold. We did make sure our actors were kept warm with coffee and hot chocolate, but rather than rushing off to get tea and coffee all day, we just got on with it to get out of the cold as quickly as possible.

We moved on in the afternoon to the bathroom scene, after a trip to Tesco for lunch, and to be honest, we had far too many crew members on this section of the shoot. Half of the crew were standing in the hallway and the other half barely fitted in the bathroom. The actors did a brilliant job with the scene, and the main crew did the best they could in the space (it was rather a small corridor/bathroom). There is not much else I can say in terms of the shoot as I was one of the ones on the stairs!

FRI 26/02/10

We were in the bedroom for this part of the shoot, and had a new schedule and a new Assistant Director. With Jon as the AD things ran as smoothly as last time, although the schedule Lauren I put together was an issue (discussed below). Tilly arrived later than desired because of the new schedule, so we were behind from the get go. the shots went well, but by the end of the list everyone was cranky and wanted to go home (most of the assistants did and we were left with Ryan, Mark, myself and Lauren with Tilly and Lexy) We did miss out some shots,so we knew immediately that we would need to do reshoot the following week or so. At the end of the shoot I could tell Lauren was worrying so I tried to calm her down and advised she had along bath and a big glass of wine over the weekend!

TIMETABLING

What happened with the timetable is that my second and third day of scheduling were able to be combined and were, but when it came to the fourth and fifth days, they actually needed to be two days. I received the revised schedule late at night on the Thursday, and Lauren I went to bed soon after emailing it to me,as she was ill. I checked it over and for some reason (probably from being tired) I did not realise she had combined the days, and by the morning it was too late to change it back to my original. I was aware that Lauren S wanted the scene to be over two days and room for timetabling and I do take responsibility for the timetabling error, but I think that the bedroom scenes were done well despite the tiredness and rushed nature of the crew and shoot.

RESHOOTS

We worked on reshoots this week, on MON 15/03/10, which I'm sure Lauren will update about soon enough. They were basically to cover the shots we missed in the bedroom ad a few new ones in the bathroom with a new blood recipe provided by Jon Neill. This shoot was a lot less stressful than the others; we had less assistants as the lighting crew was not needed. THe only assistants we had were Kelly as continuity, Jon as AD and Alister a sound. It felt a lot better and Lauren was smiling a lot more on this shoot as she had her original crew plus her own choice of AD. Looking at the rushes for this shoot, we can tell it was worth the reshoot, particularly getting an overhead shot of the full attack. Lauren was playing with the footage, and slowing it down looked very good. I look forward to seeing the new edit.

This morning Chemina, Mark, Ryan and I went in to meet Alexander Kelly, a backup tutor for us should Chris need to attend to a personal matter. Unfortunately Lauren was in London for a different module so was unable to attend. Alex asked us a number of questions about our project,generally getting an idea of our direction and the piece we were putting together. It did raise a number of questions for me, mainly to do with the next step in our process. He suggested we take the time to practise building and projecting our film, even if we cannot do it in the gallery space. He also gave us a very useful recipe for fake blood as we had some trouble with ours in the shoot (and we needed to re-shoot because of the way it looked on camera). In general,I think that we made it clear to Alex what our project was about and he seemed a very easy man to talk to and I will be perfectly happy should he need to step in as tutor.

After the meeting I went to the edit suite with Chemina and looked at what she had so far (the burying-under-the-floorboards scene), and then she got to work on the next scene (the bathroom scene). She seemed to be happy getting on with it,and despite not being able to find one of the shots on the tape, I have been informed that a rough cut exists, that I will try to drop in to see it tomorrow.

We all met today at 2.00, to discuss the shoot next week. Lauren and Ryan had discussed some shots before the meeting, and we had discovered that the Shooting Schedule I had produced could be improved (time wise) by grouping some of the shots together. When the others arrived (Dave, James, Mark, Lauren I, Ali) I explained the issue with the Shooting Schedule and ensured them it would be on the way tonight. We also discussed the general Schedule, and soon found the problems that could arise, such as that we had booked a studio on the wrong day and could not see it with out schedule (more on this below). We also answered any questions the assistants had to the best of our knowledge, such as the inspiration for the shots (Film Noir) and what kinds of sounds Ali would need to capture on set. I think the assistants left relevantly happy, although I am sure more questions will pop up within the next few days.

After the meeting, Lauren, Mark, Ryan and I discussed the issue we had with the lack of a studio for our first day of shooting. We found that it would be basically impossible to get a studio in the university, so we asked our tutor to help us out and he provided with a few options, one being the SIF studio, and to our luck, there was a meeting room free, that was actually just what we needed. We booked the studio and went our seperate ways, with more location 'checkings' aka viewings set for tomorrow.

I am currently working on the shooting schedule, and am pulling together all the locations that Mark posted lower down the page to see how easy it is to get from one to the other. I also had a class with Chrissie where we covered the documents I would need to have in my portfolio and it seems that I have got a fair few of them already. We are also working on a cast, but Lauren S has taken the lead for this week as my other project's filming falls on the Monday-Friday. I will not be completely absent however, as I have organised my own timetable to give me a little wiggle room to attend auditions if needs be.

Here is the most updated version of the main schedule: [click]

Today we had a meeting which most of our assistants attended (Ali, Chemina and Paul were unfortunately unavailable or unaware of the meeting as they hadn't checked their emails), but we did gain Dave Parkinson as a second lighting assistant along with James. We first of all went thoguh the "homework" that Lauren S had gathered for each member of the group as she had been working on her script. I passed on a small percentage of mine to Lauren I as my assistant producer because I have already got a lot on my plate with the shooting schedule and auditions. We then ensured that our assistants knew the idea of the film and fully understood their responsibilities at this time. We discussed the locations that were needed till to be found and Lauren S promised to send an updated script my way as soon as it is finished so I can send it to everyone in the group.

We also discussed the problems that may arise with the actual filming, such as how to construct floorboards that we can repeatedly smash up if needed in new takes, and also began to think of alternatives should we not be able to build the structure originally planned for the exhibition.

Present: Mark, Ryan, Lauren, Holly, Kelly, Jo

We confirmed the exhibition dates after Kelly had met with our tutor; Monday 10th May to Sun 23rd May. Jo, Ryan, Lauren, Mark and Kelly planned to go to Bank Street Arts the following Friday.

In relation to our own projects, Lauren has more or less confirmed a voice over for our project, and we discussed where to get the rest of the cast. We worked out a budget with for the booking of BSA, and it came to £25 each. We also discussed who would be in charge of making flyers and invitations, and for the time being the design will be down to Mark, but others can give their input, and I shall be working out the printing etc. We also toyed with the idea of using a sponsor, and I suggested that I ask my boss (Bargain Booze) if he can sponsor us.

- Holly