Shooting on Location

Diary of filming

Day: 1

26/01/11

Upon arriving on location for the first day, we were grateful the weather was good and enabled shooting to take place. We wanted to start with the first scene simply for an easier time later on in editing. Once settled I was glad we chose the actors we did. They were eager to assist us and made life on set very pleasant. Many laughs were had using the car as reversing up and down the street became a repetitive incident throughout the time spent there, made funny by the ridiculously loud whining noise it emitted. For the last part of the scene, Matt (Brian) kept forgetting lines, which was frustrating but all was forgiven after he got himself sorted.

Day: 2

01/02/11

Spirits were high when we arrived at Jon’s, the weather wasn’t too bad and he conveniently had a free house meaning we would not be disturbed. After removing the dog from the kitchen (not so easy funnily enough) we got underway with scene 2. We had slight interruptions with phone calls but no major hiccups. A different angle was used a one point to capture this scene but was quickly scrapped on set as it looked terrible and did not do the film justice. Bad framing was one of the reasons it was that terrible but I simply did not like it anyway. We got a lot done this day.

Day: 3

05/02/11

The final scene was filmed on this but I was not there! I was skiing at this point but I am informed by Josh that all went swimmingly and it was a simple case of an in and out job.

Day: 4

10/05/11

My first filming day back after skiing and I was very excited to continue. We made a trip to Josh’s house to film part of the conversation in scene 6. I also managed to get the footage of Matt in the car! That was hilarious, climbing through the car trying to get the best angle I could. My safety probably was not a high concern at this point! After an uncomfortable car journey (for myself anyway) we got plenty of shots of Jodie ad decided to compile them all in the scene we had some lighting troubles at one point but a lamp later we were pretty much sorted.

Later that day we made the trip to my house with the crane. After some difficulties fitting it we managed to get a great crane shot… eventually. First we endured 15 minutes of people walking past and badly framed shots due to the fact we could not see a thing, as we didn’t bother with a Tv. The eventual outcome was perfect though and guesswork clearly paid off. We got the small conversation done very quickly then, when Matt returned to his car, I insisted I filmed him with a panning shot, a shot I later saw as brilliance and had to put it in, meaning an additional frame in the storyboard and a changed animatic.

The final location of the day was Jodie’s house to shoot footage of her on the phone for an earlier scene, one of which we had highly neglected until now. After some minor puns of Jodie in bed and some light hearted insults we got cracking and came out with a pretty decent set of shots which, were ok I suppose, but we did have and excellent focus pull on her clock. A busy first day back at the office!

Day: 5

12/05/11

This was only a quick session but we made the journey to Bloxwich to film Matt in bed now as Brian. There was no escaping how awkward it was for three lads filming another in bed but once past it, we felt the footage was good and a new shot of him slamming the phone down was decided. Another change to the animatic and the storyboard was in order.

Day: 6

15/02/11

This could have been filmed a few days beforehand but our lack of time with a camera made it necessary to do it today. We first went to Johns again and filmed Matt in the office on the phone. In order to get a fluid conversation going, we had Jon reply to Matt pretending to be Karen, which distracted us at one point due to how funny the incident was. Once focus in the group was re-established, the scene turned out to be, in my opinion, the best on in regards to the rest of the phone sequences.

After this it was time to gather more footage of Matt on the phone as once looking at the ones I had taken before were very shaky and useless. This incident does not get old and Matt and I had much fun on the way back shooting this again.

Day: 7

17/02/11

With the end of the filming in sight, we made the short journey to Jodie’s to film her one last time in her home for an early phone conversation. This was a quick ordeal and rather boring as we all had other work to continue with, causing everyone to be restless. I was glad to get this scene out of the way.

Day: 8

18/02/11

Sadly our final day of filming had arrived and all that was left was Matt to speak on the phone one last time. Jon did Karen’s part again with some improvisation to keep everyone in good spirits and the whole scene was done in practically two takes! I was almost sad after this as I will probably never have chance to do this again, I have had fun doing it and it’s a shame I don’t have the camera resources else I would definitely make more films