Filming Day 1

Filming Day 1!

Monday the 22nd of April was our first filming day. Preparation for this day started on Saturday the 20th. I sent a message to our whole group on messenger to make sure everyone was still good to film. Then on Sunday the 21st I made sure all my equipment was charged up and operational for filming, making sure that I wiped the SD Cards and charged up the Drone batteries. After being satisfied that all the equipment was ready, I laid out all the equipment, methodically by my front door. I went to bed early to make sure I had enough energy for the next day.

On Monday morning I got the 9am bus into Weston-Super-Mare from Congresbury, I arrived at around 9:40am well before we were meant to arrive, which was at 12pm. However, this was all good, as I had previously booked a barber’s appointment in at 10am, to get a fresh trim right before the filming. After this, I grabbed some breakfast at treats (the café where we were all meeting) and waited patiently for the group.

When we all met, we went over all our plans for the week including the day to day schedule. We went through the shot list thoroughly and we all read through the proposal to make sure we all had burned into our heads what style we were going for. We also talked about my friend, Joel Hughes, who was going to be our second actor, alongside Archie. After this group catch-up, talking about how folder work was coming on, as well as going over a brief catch-up on what we would be filming, we then hopped into Archie’s car and headed over to our first location.

After almost arriving at our first location, which was the industrial unit in Wrington, it was apparent to us that we were very early (about 2pm) and we were meant to begin filming at around 4-5pm, when Joel gets back from London. We wasted no time and started to set up the shots that we required when Joel arrives. We then started to prepare the spray paint scene over the camera lens, using a piece of glass from an old window, which we used to cover the camera lens, I then held the glass by the edges against the camera lens. After trying this shot with a variety of different colours of spray paint we came to an agreement that the red worked best and that this shot would be the best for the pull out of the Morgan scene, which was next.

When Joel arrived at 5pm, Archie, Kasha and I began the filming of this scene, we had my first GH4 positioned on top of a tripod with the 42.5mm lens attached with the aperture set at f11. The Second camera was operated by myself, mounted on my Steadicam. With this setup, we had close-ups of the graffiti being sprayed from my perspective, and we also had the behind look from the second camera positioned behind me. When we had finished spray painting on a wall at my home, (don’t worry I had permission from my mum) we had a quick review of all the footage on the GH4’s viewfinder and concluded that we were happy and then moved onto the next scene, which was drone shots of the Morgan, with Archie and Joel getting out of the Morgan and walking into the woods.

After Arriving at the Mendip Hills, with the two cars, I was uncertain about the weather as it seemed very cloudy, however within a matter of minutes the sky cleared, and the weather was all good! So, I said to Archie and Kasha we need to get the drone shots first (initially, we were going to do them after the shots of Joel and Archie walking into the woods. So, I set up the drone making sure I double check that the battery pins were really clean before take-off, so I don’t run into a repeat of what happened when I was flying over Cheddar Gorge once, where mid-flight at 400ft high, I received a warning ‘Battery Critically Damaged’. Luckily this wasn’t a bird flying into it or someone who had shot it! It turns out a fly had just got in and died ‘conveniently’ where two pins were meant to touch, (the voltage measuring pin), luckily not an actual power pin, or I may have lost my drone forever! So, this was the reason why, I now double check and clean the pins before take-off. When I was ready, I talked my Dad (Nick, who would be driving the Morgan) through the route where I wanted him to drive (which was alongside some woodland), to make it seem like Archie and Joel are driving the Morgan they had stolen to their hideout in the woods. After all of this I gave the green light and sent my Dad off driving, he must have driven up and down the road several times before I had got all the shots I wanted! The shots were directly looking down at the Morgan driving along the road, an angle looking at it from the left and a perspective from the right. However, we did a problem where Archie had to move his car as it came into one of the shots, so I had to re-shoot that angle again. We also had to drive the Morgan at 20mph so that the drone could keep up, there was sometimes a car behind that wanted to get past, so we had to do re-shoots, but eventually, we got all the shots we wanted. After checking the footage, we were happy and moved on to the next clip of Archie and Joel entering the woodland.

The next scene was quite simple, just me following Joel and Archie from behind with the Steadicam. This shot was capturing their brotherly love as they enter the woods, before this shot though, I captured the second half of the red paint transition, pulling the camera out of the red Morgan, which turned out well despite me thinking it was looking a bit shaky when looking through the viewfinder. After this, the shots of them walking into the woods were easy enough, for one shot I followed them from behind, and in the other, I was behind looking back at them walking back then rotating anticlockwise around a tree which would link into our transition for filming at my Grandmas (Eira’s) woods tomorrow!

Our last scene of the day was the shots of Archie and Joel stealing the Morgan back at the Burnett Industrial Estate in Wrington. Everything in this scene was captured at f2.8 with my 12-35mm lens mounted on the Steadicam once again, with an iso booted from 200-400 which did introduce grain, but it would not matter as we will be adding grain into even the daylight footage when it comes to editing. So, moving onto the shots, first one was the guys emerging from a shipping container, then looking around to check for any security guards. Then Archie lit up a cigarette, which did look cinematic to me, then shots of them creeping towards the unit where they believed something valuable was being kept. I then moved to a wide shot of the barn style doors being opened by Archie after Joel tosses him the old looking crowbar. After this, Archie flicked on the lights and the whole room lights up, I thought the fluorescent lightbulbs dramatically added to the scene where they flash before turning on. (also, to help light the Morgan we were using two of my bi-colour lights). Then after I got a shot of them opening the doors, but from behind the Morgan, just for some extra shots to play around with for the editing. After this, I Captured a shot of Archie’s hand running along the Morgan, which I thought looked stunning and then another few of them entering the vehicle and some close-ups of Archie’s hands on the steering wheel (as well as the Morgan logo). Then we moved onto the final shot, Archie driving the Morgan out of the garage with the lights on, we would then fade to black, these shots seemed to come out well, and I was happy with the end product.

On the whole, filming today couldn’t have gone any better, we all arrived on time (kind of, Joel’s train was a bit late!) All the footage came out well, after a thorough review by me later that night when we finally got home at about 10pm. No re-shoots required, that is the most important thing to me, as those shots would be hard to capture again. Good stuff today, looking forward to tomorrow!