First day of filming

‘Always be prepared for the worse in order to succeed’. This is one of the key factors I have learnt in the process of making our movie opening. Not everything went after our plan on the first day of filming. We filmed some footage, but at the end we didn’t find it as useful and ended up not having it in our final piece. This is because of the setting. We found the setting not very classroom like on that day. So we booked a new appointment for another day, when the classroom would be more crowded with people, as we only had two extras available on that day. This made us realise, that not everything is predictable, as we thought that the classroom will be more crowded with people on that day. But that was our instinct, so we realised that it is all about making sure and checking not fallowing your instincts. We found the first day very helpful for us, as we learnt our lesson and had a chance to see what went well and what went wrong in order to succeed on the next day of filming. We also had a chance to realise, that the camera that we were using was too complicated, so we changed our minds up and used a different camera on the next day.  

Second day of filming

‘180 degrees rule’. We are all ready and compared for filming the scenes in the classroom.  Mis-en-scene always gives some extra information on the characters to the audience, so we had to wear the right clothes in order to give the right idea of our characters. We had all of our props ready and we were ready to film. Everything went after our plan and we had now filmed all the scenes that we needed in the classroom.

Third day 

‘Check the weather news’. We came across a slight and unexpected problem. It started to rain outside. The weather wasn’t suitable for our film, so we couldn’t film that day. Also because of safety matters, as the actors and extras could fall because of weather, so we didn’t want that to happen, as the actors were very important. Also we had no equipment to cover the camera with, so we didn’t want the equipment to be damaged as well. As weather is unpredictable, we made sure that we also checked the weather news for the next day of filming.

Fourth day 

‘Planning is the key factor’. We made sure that the weather is suitable outside for our scenes outside. We made sure, that all the extras that were needed were in, by having a call sheet with their number on it. Weather turned out to be good for our film, the actors needed turned up and we filmed all the scenes outside. The problem with this was that it was freezing cold outside, as we spent few hours filming. We were meant to provide the crew with some food and warm drinks, but we didn’t plan it too well, so the actors, extras and other crew members were freezing and hungry.

  ‘Have a test shoot and you will see what’s missing’. When we uploaded the footage on the computer and started to edit, we straight away knew what was missing and what extra key things needed to be film in order to give the right representation as well as to make it look like a movie opening.                   

Day five

 We had decided to re film few scenes, as we wasn’t satisfied with the ones we already had, so we filmed in different locations in order to have a wider choice of shots to use. On day five, we also filmed few shots of our location as we didn’t really have a lot of shots to use for introducing our location. We contacted our very important extra to come in on that day, we filmed and the footage was exactly what we wanted and needed. We also had a shot where we plaid with the focus, which we found very useful at the end.

Day six

  This happened spontaneously, as we didn’t plan to film anything on that day, but we decided to film some shots of the atmosphere and classrooms for the diegetic sound, that we could use for our movie opening.

‘Great successes’. We had all of our footage that was needed and we were on process of editing. We came across few mistakes and problems, but we seemed to fix them. And next time we would be more prepared and ready. It was a very good experience and it helped us to learn a lot and understand the process of movie making much more.

By: Simona Larka 9575