Filming Review (22nd-24th December)

I think that my first few days of filming went really well. I experimented with different ideas and had to overcome a few problems that occurred.

My first minor issue was that I had to reschedule some of the filmings because two of my actors were no longer able to make the times we had set – the filming at the Plough that would have taken place on Monday was moved to Tuesday and the filming at McDonald’s had to be moved later. Despite the change we were able to reschedule the dates and I was able to film what I needed to.

Another issue was the weather. Unfortunately Britain experienced a mighty amount of wind and rain around Christmas time which was my only chance to film. Traveling around was a little difficult seeing as most of my cast had to walk to the filming destinations which meant that when they got to the shooting location they looked a little disheveled. However the main issue was filming outside in the park on Monday 23rd. In order to make sure that my camera was safe from the elements I brought three umbrellas with me and made a ‘bubble’ around the camera with the help of a friend so that I could film this shot:

I also brought a plastic sheet which ‘Mark’ is sitting on because the bench was also soaked. For the tracking shot I could not keep this ‘bubble’ around the camera so instead just held one umbrella as I moved. Despite the weather I still managed to film and my camera still works so I’d say it was a success.

I said that I experimented with different ideas. For the tracking shot I had two ideas about how I could try and make it as smooth as possible – either just walk with the camera pressed against my shoulder and try and keep as straight as possible or I thought that I would try using my bike. I put a book on the seat and the some blue-tac on the book and then the camera on that and tried pushing it along and tracking behind ‘Mark’s’ head. Comparing both techniques the plain old walking shot actually looks better in my opinion so I will probably use that one however, I’m still happy that I was able to experiment with my ideas.

For the filming at the Black Horse Pub I bought the main prop of my opening sequence – a bunch of roses – from Sainsburys for Mark to hold while he’s waiting for his date to arrive as I thought this would make the audience feel a little more sympathy for him, and it is a conventional prop of the romantic comedy genre. I had originally planned to have two different coloured bunches of flowers for another of the dates however they were a little expensive and died rather quickly so I couldn’t.