Date: Friday 9th January Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent Time of Day: Night
Time filming started: 4:00pm Time filming finished: 9:30pm Scene: 2 Shots: 31-42- Interior Crew Present:
Deanna Hopps - Director and Make-up Artist
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer (Camera) and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Costume
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Directing
Cast Present:
Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard
Summary of the Day:
Sorting out the props
Today was another successful day as we got a large amount of filming completed, despite a few hick-ups along the way like the usual lighting issues that we had when filming in the living room. The plan for today was to complete the living room shots and move the scene into the kitchen - preferably start on the kitchen shots (starting shot 43) if possible. Again we had to set up all of the props on the table - not a day has gone by that we haven't had to set it all up; the amount of juice we went through... ahh! We were extremely fussy about where everything went, right from the candles being turned the right way to the place mats being the correct ones and the right way up.
We were all pretty tense and excited about filming this part of our film due to a few certain aspects of it. The first one was the slapping-of-Alex's-face shot (shot 35) as we were unsure whether we could get the perfect camera angle to enable the slap to look real while it actually wasn't. Myself and Charlotte adjusted the script a little at this point as we thought the original script was a bit unrealistic and simple, so we wanted to spice things up and make it flow better with the new shot ideas. A point-of-view shot from Richard's eyes was considered to start with to show Rebecca (Alice) slapping Alex (Richard) however Cameron thought that it wasn't going to be as effective as actually seeing the slap, so we replaced the POV shot with shot reverse shots and match-on-actions to show the slap from different angles; just to add an edge to it instead of showing a boring still shot. Cameron the Camera-Man was correct on changing our minds. :) The other shot that we were tense about was shot 38. This was were Richard (played by Alex) lost his temper at his girlfriend, Alice, shouted "Shut up" and slammed down the chair from the side of the table. Although we thought this would be incredibly affective, and when we tried it once we believed it to have worked, we felt that the action was far to vigorous to keep redoing to get the perfect shot for fear it would break the glass table and flimsy chair SO instead we replaced the chair with the Romeo and Juliet book that had been placed upon the table, just where Richard could pick it up and throw at the door. This took a few takes to get right - including myself sandwiched behind the door to stop it from swinging into the wall as the book hit it with some force. Alex really managed to portray good anger in this shot - so much so that the camera doesn't actually give him justice because we all freaked out when he first shouted; it was rather scary.
Charlotte and myself shared the role of director throughout today - mostly because we had sat down and rewrote the script together in depth and figured out how each line should be said and had a rough idea of how each line should be filmed to suit how the character would be acting. Cameron was once again the camera man, offering solutions to dilemmas that were occurring: such as where to place the camera within the living room as to not keep repeating the same shot type twice; we liked to experiment with where to put the camera: for example the shot that had the wine glass closer to the camera screen with Richard and Alice (shot 40) We felt it drove a wedge between the two, almost like a wall, as well as showing 'this is what they would have been doing' type feel to the film. Daniel did sound recorder - he recorded the sound of the slap perfectly, whilst also starting on voice recording some of what the cast members were saying.. He also took on the role of PA once again and was forever making cup of teas and cokes for everybody. Altogether, I think that today was successful, Video Footage of the book and chair scenes:
