Hidden Production Journal.
Director: Callum Monro
Cinematographer: Aaron Wiles
Editor: Sam Cox
Planing:
Our brief was to come up with a 4 to 5 minute film.
One of the problems we faced when coming up with a story was how we were going to fit it into a five minute production. When you're writing for a five minute film you have to compress the everything and still make sure it makes sense.
At first we all came up with individual ideas.
For me this took a long time to inspire me I watched a couple of films and finally decided that I wanted to create a short thriller/horror.
Once we discussed our ideas together we decided to use mine as the base idea but to also incorporate elements from Aaron and Sam's plans.
My film was called SCP-0 and was about a mysterious creature that was being held captive by the government. From this we decided that we wanted to film in an abandoned building. We eventually scrapped that idea and replaced it with Bedlam.
Bedlam and was about a group of yobs who stumbled across and abandoned asylum, however some strange forces were at work resulting in their deaths.
I was aiming for the film to have a very intense and mysterious atmosphere that didn't break for entirety of the film.
We immediately began writing up the script on Google Drive, this enabled us to write on the document all at the same time. This took us about three weeks to complete and we finally finished by writing up the hazards list, equipment list, costumes list and the storyboard. We planned to start filming before the summer holidays over the weekend, this was so we could access the building that we needed.
Everything was looking great we were totally prepared with our equipment, props, actors and we were on time. When the day arrived we had no issues with broken or forgotten equipment and we began to film with no problems. However I'd only planned for this whole film to be shot over one day....which turned out to be a big mistake. We'd spent nearly two hours just filming the outside scene and we were starting to get off schedule. So although we hadn't finished a key scene we decided to make our way inside the building. This proved to be an issue.
It took us roughly 45 minutes to get inside the building, this almost shattered our hopes of getting inside and we almost gave up. From this I've learnt to not be completely ignorant and deny the fact that there could be issues with the location you choose.
After finally entering the building we'd gained more confidence however we very far behind and we'd just started Scene two.
I think that because of the building we were filming in we were all pretty creeped out especially myself who was already stressed out about the time situation this had a significant effect on my directing skills.
We made progress very slowly and I very rarely checked over shots to make sure they were in focus (which turned to be a massive mistake) and we hardly took any re-shoots resulting in very poorly focused shots and jumpy cuts.
This continued to worsen throughout the day and ultimately resulted in the failure of the task by the time we'd got out we were too tired to film the scene we'd missed out and we never went back.]
Over the holidays we could of re-filmed it however I never got round to it this meant that when we returned to school we couldn't do it.
We had about 3-4 weeks to adapt the film, during this time we changed our film from a horror/thriller in an asylum to horror/thriller in the woods! This time I was a lot more wary of where we were going to film. However the day before the film one of our actors dropped out from the production leaving us without a full cast, luckily we managed to get another actors at the last moment. The week before we started filming we finished up our hazards list, equipment list and storyboard etc....
Day 1:
We started the day well everyone turned up, we had all of our equipment and we were on time. However I had to print out the scripts this lost us about 10 minutes of our time. Once we arrived on set we began to film straight away. We knew what we were doing and there were no issues apart from lack of concentration from both the actors and my crew. When we arrived in the woods the concentration levels fell once again which slowed me down significantly. I felt that my crew weren't pro-active enough either I had to pretty hold their hands to guide them on what to do since they weren't bothering to read the script and get everything set up while I sorted out the actors, this consequently meant that the directions I gave were not as good as they could of been.
When the crane arrived we managed to get it set up quickly without too many problems we actually managed to get back on schedule.
An hour before lunch one of our main actors had to leave for a lesson. To make us of the time we had a lunch break while he was gone the plan worked well and we even shot some cinematics before he returned. One of the main problems I faced throughout the day was having to work with people who sometimes behave like 7-8 year olds we had members of the group playing with the axe which had to ban in the end, this was very upsetting for some.
As the day went on we managed to get though both the scenes we'd planned to do and we actually overtook our schedule. By the end of the day we were all very tired this did mean our standards did drop as we became more impatient.
Day 2:
By Day 2 I knew what to expect. I dropped one of the extra members of the crew who was giving a helping hand the day before. Luckily his absence seemed to help quiten Gareth, one of our actors. This made my job a lot easier and I could finally concentrate more on the directing of the film.
However there was a problem Mrs Joy had looked through the rushes and it turned out that in the beginning scenes the mic hadn't been turned on by our cameraman.
We started the day off by returning to the farm. We re-shot what needed doing and added a few extra bits before continuing to where we left off. Since I wasn't happy with what we'd filmed at the end of the previous day we re-shot it. I felt this was a good call, the shots we got looked a lot more professional and generally creepier. As the day continued we kept a consistent pace and we were way ahead of schedule. We had lunch for an hour or so during this time we discussed what would happen next we were also approached by a strange man who was creeping up on us, to keep him away I swung the axe into a tree, he didn't bother us. While we were filming sadly Will (Joel) tripped over a branch when trying to see what we'd filmed and he sprained his wrist. Will was fine and we continued to film.
Overall Day 2 was a lot more successful than Day 1 we got much more done, better shots and a more relaxing day for myself. At the end of the day we'd finally finished filming everything that needed filming in the woods.
Day 3:
Our plan for the final day was to finish the film and get a basic edit. However our main part for this scene Joel played by Will was ill along with that he'd got his arm in a cast from yesterday. This meant that we couldn't finish the film. So instead of filming our last scene Sam, Aaron and myself began to put together a basic edit of the film. This meant we put all of our clips in the right order and found any issues that there were with the continuity, audio, video, etc....
By the end of the day we had the base layer for of film, this meant that over the next couple of weeks we could fine tune everything else that needed to be done.
Final Scene:
Two weeks since we'd last filmed and we were all back at in Film Dept. finishing off the film. All went well apart from our cinematographer decided to not turn up. This meant that I had to film the final part of the film which wasn't much of a problem. What was a problem though was the lack of a tripod which consequently made all of our shots shaky which just meant we had to go back and do it another time.
The next day we returned this time with Aaron and a tripod however no Kevin since Callum was ill. To deal with this I swapped round Kevin and Brads dialog and cut the dead body from the scene.
The filming went fine and we got some great shots however the mic seemed to break on the camera and we soon found out that we had no audio. We would of had to re-shoot the entire scene if it wasn't for Aaron who'd just left another mic running behind the iMac. This meant that we had to just align the audio up with the video instead.
One of the problems we faced when coming up with a story was how we were going to fit it into a five minute production. When you're writing for a five minute film you have to compress the everything and still make sure it makes sense.
At first we all came up with individual ideas.
For me this took a long time to inspire me I watched a couple of films and finally decided that I wanted to create a short thriller/horror.
Once we discussed our ideas together we decided to use mine as the base idea but to also incorporate elements from Aaron and Sam's plans.
My film was called SCP-0 and was about a mysterious creature that was being held captive by the government. From this we decided that we wanted to film in an abandoned building. We eventually scrapped that idea and replaced it with Bedlam.
Bedlam and was about a group of yobs who stumbled across and abandoned asylum, however some strange forces were at work resulting in their deaths.
It took us roughly 45 minutes to get inside the building, this almost shattered our hopes of getting inside and we almost gave up. From this I've learnt to not be completely ignorant and deny the fact that there could be issues with the location you choose.
After finally entering the building we'd gained more confidence however we very far behind and we'd just started Scene two.
I think that because of the building we were filming in we were all pretty creeped out especially myself who was already stressed out about the time situation this had a significant effect on my directing skills.
We made progress very slowly and I very rarely checked over shots to make sure they were in focus (which turned to be a massive mistake) and we hardly took any re-shoots resulting in very poorly focused shots and jumpy cuts.
This continued to worsen throughout the day and ultimately resulted in the failure of the task by the time we'd got out we were too tired to film the scene we'd missed out and we never went back.]
Over the holidays we could of re-filmed it however I never got round to it this meant that when we returned to school we couldn't do it.
We had about 3-4 weeks to adapt the film, during this time we changed our film from a horror/thriller in an asylum to horror/thriller in the woods! This time I was a lot more wary of where we were going to film. However the day before the film one of our actors dropped out from the production leaving us without a full cast, luckily we managed to get another actors at the last moment. The week before we started filming we finished up our hazards list, equipment list and storyboard etc....
Day 1:
We started the day well everyone turned up, we had all of our equipment and we were on time. However I had to print out the scripts this lost us about 10 minutes of our time. Once we arrived on set we began to film straight away. We knew what we were doing and there were no issues apart from lack of concentration from both the actors and my crew. When we arrived in the woods the concentration levels fell once again which slowed me down significantly. I felt that my crew weren't pro-active enough either I had to pretty hold their hands to guide them on what to do since they weren't bothering to read the script and get everything set up while I sorted out the actors, this consequently meant that the directions I gave were not as good as they could of been.
When the crane arrived we managed to get it set up quickly without too many problems we actually managed to get back on schedule.
An hour before lunch one of our main actors had to leave for a lesson. To make us of the time we had a lunch break while he was gone the plan worked well and we even shot some cinematics before he returned. One of the main problems I faced throughout the day was having to work with people who sometimes behave like 7-8 year olds we had members of the group playing with the axe which had to ban in the end, this was very upsetting for some.
As the day went on we managed to get though both the scenes we'd planned to do and we actually overtook our schedule. By the end of the day we were all very tired this did mean our standards did drop as we became more impatient.
Day 2:
By Day 2 I knew what to expect. I dropped one of the extra members of the crew who was giving a helping hand the day before. Luckily his absence seemed to help quiten Gareth, one of our actors. This made my job a lot easier and I could finally concentrate more on the directing of the film.
However there was a problem Mrs Joy had looked through the rushes and it turned out that in the beginning scenes the mic hadn't been turned on by our cameraman.
We started the day off by returning to the farm. We re-shot what needed doing and added a few extra bits before continuing to where we left off. Since I wasn't happy with what we'd filmed at the end of the previous day we re-shot it. I felt this was a good call, the shots we got looked a lot more professional and generally creepier. As the day continued we kept a consistent pace and we were way ahead of schedule. We had lunch for an hour or so during this time we discussed what would happen next we were also approached by a strange man who was creeping up on us, to keep him away I swung the axe into a tree, he didn't bother us. While we were filming sadly Will (Joel) tripped over a branch when trying to see what we'd filmed and he sprained his wrist. Will was fine and we continued to film.
Overall Day 2 was a lot more successful than Day 1 we got much more done, better shots and a more relaxing day for myself. At the end of the day we'd finally finished filming everything that needed filming in the woods.
Day 3:
Our plan for the final day was to finish the film and get a basic edit. However our main part for this scene Joel played by Will was ill along with that he'd got his arm in a cast from yesterday. This meant that we couldn't finish the film. So instead of filming our last scene Sam, Aaron and myself began to put together a basic edit of the film. This meant we put all of our clips in the right order and found any issues that there were with the continuity, audio, video, etc....
By the end of the day we had the base layer for of film, this meant that over the next couple of weeks we could fine tune everything else that needed to be done.
Final Scene:
Two weeks since we'd last filmed and we were all back at in Film Dept. finishing off the film. All went well apart from our cinematographer decided to not turn up. This meant that I had to film the final part of the film which wasn't much of a problem. What was a problem though was the lack of a tripod which consequently made all of our shots shaky which just meant we had to go back and do it another time.
The next day we returned this time with Aaron and a tripod however no Kevin since Callum was ill. To deal with this I swapped round Kevin and Brads dialog and cut the dead body from the scene.
The filming went fine and we got some great shots however the mic seemed to break on the camera and we soon found out that we had no audio. We would of had to re-shoot the entire scene if it wasn't for Aaron who'd just left another mic running behind the iMac. This meant that we had to just align the audio up with the video instead.
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