DAY 3 OF FILMING.

On our third day of filming we had a variety of shots to film. First we decided to get an establishing shot of Ali our main character sitting on a bench in a vast greenery area. From there we got various angles of his body E.G mid shots close ups, long shots. These were all filmed on ‘The Green’ in Wanstead.

The things we had to film on the third day:

• Ali in the park (various shots)
• Ali walking
• Ali crossing the road in an anxious and paranoid manner
• Ali buying something from a shop but unable to (various shots needed)
• People walking into another shop
• Ali trying to walk into the shop but being told he isn’t allowed
• Ali walking away in an uneasy manner

One of the main issues we faced was finding shops to film in as due to the fact that we had limited time we had to ask the shop owners on the day rather than beforehand enabling them to prepare. We were turned down by the first shop as they could not get in contact with their head office so we turned to the shop next door who were happy to let us film. Also we wanted shots from behind the counter but had to understand that this was not allowed as we were not employees so we dealt with this by getting more creative shots on the other side of the counter. Our final day of filming was a big success as when I uploaded the footage onto the iMac and added the shots needed into our film order we had over 5 minutes of footage which was perfect!

CLIPS PROBLEM.

Once we had uploaded all of our footage onto the iMac and roughly put it in order we had realized that we only had 3 minutes 30 seconds of footage which did not suffice to the 4 minutes and 30 seconds minimum. Therefore after a discussion with my group and our teachers we decided in order to fill the entire time, at the beginning of the short film we will have an introduction of the main character so the audience can tell from the start that he is schizophrenic.

As schizophrenics can do day to day things but act differently and deviate from social norms in situations we decided to show our main character doing everyday activities.

We chose to film him crossing the road but very anxiously, buying something from a shop but getting frustrated with himself and panicky, show people going into a shop then show him trying to go into the same shop but the owner does not allow him to come in. This is to show that he feels like an outcast in society and does not feel accepted.

DAY 2 OF FILMING.

During our second day of filming we had to film Ken who played the landlord entering the room and realizing that they are filming thus revealing the twist to the audience. Initially we planned on Ken being a room-mate however once looking back at our footage and analyzing the actor himself we thought it was best fit if Ken was the landlord. Once this was decided, we began filming.

Here is a picture of myself filming. Taken by one of the actors we used.

Problems we faced were mainly continuity errors such as the positioning of ties, hoodies ETC as if we did not bring these down to a low level the overall product would look very amateur. In order to make sure we didn’t have many continuity errors we made sure to watch the footage back to see how the Mise En Scene, costumes, body language ETC were in all the previous scenes in order to match up in the next.

Shot of the front of the house where Ken enters.

We filmed shots outside of Ken walking from the pavement into the outside area of the house,close up of him getting keys out of his pocket and opening the door to ensure that the audience know that this is a property he has been in before and feels comfortable so they know that he is meant to be there and isn’t an attacker or something to that extent.

When Ken walks into the room and it is revealed that a camera crew is in there we shot various close ups of Ali’s (good Ali) face to show reaction shots and panned out to show the entire crew getting agitated and packing up.

Here shows a shot from the right of the room Ken walks into to reveal the twist.

The last shot we filmed was a high angle shot showing the landlord forcing the camera-crew and Ali to leave as Ali has not paid his rent; and he waves goodbye to them all.

All in all the second day of filming went well,  again we all fulfilled our duties as myself the Director, Shahriyar the Producer and Ian the Cameraman. Although we all have our own individual ‘titles’ it did not stop us from giving ideas and suggestions to each other as it would only strengthen the overall film.

DAY ONE OF FILMING.

We started our filming on Thursday the 10th of November. Our plan was to split our script up into three parts, the ‘good’ character, the ‘evil’ character and the comedic reveal. We chose to film these on three different days in order to give us time for each part. The majority of our props that are needed will be for when we film the ‘good’ character. For that we have a whiskey glass, an ash tray filled with ashes and cigarettes, cufflinks and a bottle of pills.

We chose Ali Hussain to be our main actor in the short film and we began to film the evil character on our first day. Initially I was quite apprehensive to use Ali as our main actor as I had never seen him act before, but my group members assured me he was good so I trusted their judgement. On the day I was extremely impressed at how good his acting skills were and realised my group members had chosen him well as he fit the characters perfectly and could express the emotions we needed for each character. We filmed it in my house as it was available and has quite a vintage old fashioned feel to it which was perfect for our idea.

We arranged the furniture and based it around an old fashioned fireplace I have in my house to make the Mise En Scene very effective in portraying the evil character, we also turned down the lights and used a large lamp in order to creating low key dim lighting.

A large chair was used for the actor to sit in and throughout filming we only showed half of the table we used and we will do the same for the good character as it shows that both are sitting across the table from each other. Also a key part we wanted to show in the first few scenes to link in with the effect of the Mise En Scene was a vintage clock and painting I have in my house which was key to our first scenes as it represented the type of character we were portraying.

We shot in a lot of different positions to show to the audience that the character is a figure of his imagination. Many close ups and low angle shots were used to show intensity and superiority of the evil character.

We began filming at half 5 and by the time it was 6.30 we had all our evil characters shots done, this was way ahead of time as we had thought it would take two hours to film. So in order to give us MAXIMUM time to edit we took advantage of this opportunity and also filmed the good character in this day too!

For our good character we changed the setting and placed the actor on a sofa with the other half of the table in view of the camera. We also placed a bottle of opened tablets on the table with the tablets falling out, an ash tray will with cigarette butts and ashes, cufflinks and a whiskey glass.

We did various high angle shots to create an intimidating point of view shot to show awkwardness and aggressiveness. Mainly we did long shots for the good character to show he is real and is a disturbed person. And we also did close ups of all the props that were on the table to let the audience know the intensity that we were trying to create of the situation.

I am pleased with how much our group had achieved in one day and it all went quite smoothly, we all helped out with the filming duties but had our own individual jobs to do, Ian was the cameraman and had control of the filming apects, Shahriyar was producer and made sure the Mise En Scene fit each character and I was director and was in control of making sure the actor knew our specific portrayal of the character and ensured that the lighting, script, visual images ETC were correct to fit our film genre. Our next filming day is Tuesday 15th where we will film the comedic reveal.