Just before I was going to film I had another look at my story and planning, after having a talk with my tutor I then decided that certain scenes such as a pregnancy and proposal had the danger of being too cheesy. With this in mind I then cut a number of scenes and focused on the more vital part of developing a relationship. This was a good thing as I would of had a large amount of shots to film and would struggle to do that in the time that my actors were available.
My story would now consist purely of outlining and developing the characters relationship and how one of them falling ill would affect this.
I had a total of 3 days with my actors to film everything I needed and outlined each scene that I needed to do on each day.
Day 1 – Seawood/beach – relationship development
Day 2 – Coniston water – passed away scene
Day 3 – diagnosis/illness effects and hospital scene
Spacing it out along these days worked really well as it meant that I wasn’t asking too much of my actors from each day and also I could review the footage at home after each shoot.
However because my actors were free for a limited amount of time it meant that I didn’t really have an opportunity to do any test shots with them. This meant that during the days of filming I had to spend a bit of time trying out shots and finding angles that I liked.
During filming I used my storyboards as a checklist to make sure that I had all the essential shots I needed and then began to look for new angles that I could get while there with the mindset that I wanted more close up/abstract shots. This was a necessary thing to do however as my story had changed last minute meaning that a number of my shots were planned out and developed on set, although this was a problem it wasn’t too bad as I felt more natural walking about the locations with my actors looking for shots and trying out different options.
Overall these filming days went reasonably well, I had arranged to have two vehicles so moving actors and kit around wasn’t a problem. I’d made sure that I had spare SD cards, batteries and that all of my kit worked properly before going.
I did however encounter a few problems along the way. Firstly my actors weren’t massively confident in their abilities, however because they are a couple in real life this really helped them as I could allow them to explore the locations naturally together with slight input from me in regards to positioning or any essential movements. Doing it this way meant that I could run around and get everything I needed without them getting too camera shy or confused by going from shot to shot, it also meant that I had many opportunities to get shots that I might not of thought of without them constantly moving about and interacting.
This became more of a problem on day 2 when we were shooting the passed away scene. I had originally planned for the male actor to play the role of the character passing away, however when it came to it Lauren (female actor) wasn’t very confident in playing the part of mourning as she no longer had someone to bounce off and interact with. Tom (male actor) was more confident though so I decided to have them switch roles as it wouldn’t impact the film or affect anything that I had already shot.
Matthew Tucker 