MY FIRST FILM
Prologue Shoot Day 2
Sunday, 13 July 2008
I woke up early again. Good thing as my alarm didn’t go off. I had set it for 8am, but when I checked it, the alarm was set for 8pm. I rolled out of bed and started to get ready. I had a bath and then had some breakfast. Benjamin was awake now. As it was after 8, I knocked on Richard’s and Andy’s door, to wake them up. As the guys got ready, I was busy letting the cast and crew into the car park. Liz had brought her car with her today, as she was going to another job this evening. I had promised Liz that she would be wrapped for 3pm. Though we had a 2 hour window if we ran over. Next to arrive was Samuel. I lead them both up to set, so they could get ready for the day’s events. Helen and William arrived soon afterwards and by 9am we were ready to pick up where we had left off from yesterday.
We had 3 shots to pick up, before Axelle arrived at 11am. We got through them pretty quickly. We would do no more than 6 takes on a shot and then setting for the next shot didn’t take long. We actually knocked those shots off before 11am, so I had to look for shots we could do without Axelle. There was POV (Point of View) shot that we could do. As we were setting up the shot, my mobile went off. Axelle was outside the set. I went down to get her and show her the way up to the location. I asked Helen to get Axelle into makeup and wardrobe, while we finished this shot.
Axelle’s first shot was a reveal. She had to be positioned so she would be obscured by Benjamin and Liz. Then when they moved, Axelle would appear in shot. It meant a lot of manoeuvring around as the shot was being lined up. The first position Axelle had to adopt wasn’t the most comfortable of positions. But each time we had to change all the actors positions, change the camera position, until we finally got the correct line up of the shot. Axelle’s final position was more comfortable.
The temperature on the set was hot. We had to close all the doors and windows to block the sound coming from outside. The lights were giving out a lot of heat. The set was small. There was a lot of people in there. It was a warm day outside. Theses ingredients made for a very hot set. We were all cooking.
The next lot of shots were taking time to execute. This was down to the exact blocking of the actors. If they missed their marks, they would be out of focus or obscure the other actors. It had to be very exact and very exact takes time.
Liz came to me at one point between takes and showed me that her costume was starting to be ripped. I had to send William out to the high street to find a replacement and hope that we wouldn’t need it. The part that was being ripped wasn’t visible on camera, but if the hole got any bigger, the costume would fall apart. Thankfully we didn’t have to use the alternative costume in the end, as I sure it would of resulted in a continuity error.
We were setting up the final shot before lunch, when there was an almighty smash from outside. I went out to the balcony to see what had happened. Out on the street below one car had hit another. One car was turning into a parking space and didn’t look to see if there was any oncoming traffic, and drove straight into the side of another car. The driver, who was at fault, was only a kid and he looked really upset. I’m guessing that it’s not his car. I would say it was his father’s and now he had an audience to watch his misery. Everybody in the set was at a window or out on the balcony to have a look at the crash. I guess every flat in the block had people looking at him. The entire street was looking at him.
It was getting so nosy from honking horns, as the crash had blocked both lanes of traffic. We had to break for lunch. I decided that we should order from Subways and William collected everybody’s order. As William went off, Richard suggested that we continue to shoot. We could stop when the food arrived. I said no. We needed a break. It was so hot in there and we needed to cool off. So we waited for the food to arrive. At least we had something to watch, as the events outside continued to proceed. The police had now arrived and they had to be able to move the crashed cars out of the way. They were now talking to both parties, trying to find out what had happened. The driver, who had been hit, was really irate. The other driver still had his heads in his hands.
When William got back, we ate our Subways. As soon as we finished, it was back to work. It was now 3pm and we still had a lot of shots to get with Liz in them. From then to 5.30pm, the pressure was on to get all those shots. We did one shot - a head and shoulders shot - with Liz in it. We did 2 takes and moved onto the next shot. Richard suddenly asks me if Liz’s shoulder strap was in that shot. I didn’t know. We rewound the tape and looked at the previous shot. Yep. There it was and the shoulder strap wasn’t supposed to be in shot. I didn’t notice it. Nobody had noticed it. We had to go back and re-shoot the last shot. It meant resetting the camera and resetting the lights. Liz was annoyed that we had to do it again and that everybody thought it was her fault. It was nobody’s fault. We all had missed it. Richard asked me to get somebody on continuity. I asked William to do it.
William from then on sat next to me or the camera and did the continuity on the rest of the shoot. I have to add that William was a great help on the shoot. William is a film student at the Met Film School in Ealing Studios and was recommended to me by Ben Woodiwiss. We had met the weekend before and we got on great. He has a lot enthusiasm for filmmaking, but he knew his place on the set. I worked with a lot of students who would go up to the director, on a shoot, and start suggesting shots. William never did that. And when he was asked to do anything, he would do it straight away, he would do it well and he would do it without complaint. When we talked he had a lot of ideas for films that he wants to do, and they all sounded good. Hopefully I will get to see them.
Another problem with had on the set was with Axelle’s fangs. They wouldn’t stay in. Benjamin’s had brought his fangs from Cornwall, so they fitted on straight away. Helen then tried to fix Axelle’s on using this gel, which takes an impression of your tooth and then the fang should just fit on. This wasn’t working. So in my prudence, I had gotten William to buy Polly Grip for dentures. This wasn’t sticking either. The crew was now all waiting for Axelle, so we could get this shot in the can. In the end Axelle had to hold the fangs in place and then let go on ”Action!”, and hope they would stay in place.
They never fell out. Actually once we had finished filming, they were firmly fixed in place. I decided now would be a good time for Matteo to start taking promotional photos of my 2 vampires. Matteo had arrived earlier that morning and was busying trying to take photos of the cast and crew without getting in the way. A task that he did very well. Not once did I hear anybody grumble about the stills photographer getting in the way. It was a shame Matteo couldn’t make it down to Cornwall. I had planned for him to come down for the first weekend, but something came up and he couldn’t do it. Hopefully he has gotten some great photos today. I don’t think my first photo with Axelle came out too well. I had to get Matteo to take another one. I was trying to look scared, but I can’t do scared.
It was coming down to the wire, but at 5.30pm I was able to wrap Liz. We gave her a round of applause as she finished her last shot. Her job today was the most uncomfortable and I imagine she glad it was over. Now she has to rush off and do another job. I don’t envy her. Having done it myself, I know how tiring it is to go from one to another. You just want to sit down and relax, but you have to work more. It’s horrible. Once Liz was changed and ready to go, I went down with her to the garage so to let her out of the gate. She said goodbye and was off.
I rushed back upstairs. All we had to do now was get all the dialogue between Mary and Seth. This wasn’t going to be easier. It wasn’t exactly quiet in there with the high street on our doorstep. I was going to have to do the shots several times, so hopefully I could cut around any loud noises in the recorded sound. Though every time Ben would say his last line, there would be a car stereo or car horn or a loud exhaust. It was always something when it came to Ben’s last line. So we had to get a pickup shot where Ben only said that line. We also tried to record Ben’s and Axelle’s dialogue in a corner of the room with a sheet up, trying to block out the sound from outside. I don’t know if that was successful or not. I hope so. It’s going to make editing the dialogue interesting.
So once that was done, Axelle was wrapped. We had got her finished by 7pm. Not too bad. It was only an hour over the wrap time. Axelle said goodbye to everybody and then she was off. For us we had one more shot to do - a close up of Ben. It didn’t take too long to do. 15 minutes and then we were all wrapped. Now it was time to pack up and leave.
One by one everybody left until it was only myself, Andy and William. We got to work on moving the furniture back. It didn’t take too long to do. The kitchen was a mess and the floor needed a hoover, but I would do it tomorrow. I walked with Andy and William to the tube station and saw them off. Then I went to have some Chinese food for dinner. I returned back to the empty set, exhausted. My work wasn’t finished. I still have a trip back down to Sutton to return Lee’s 35mm adaptor. I still have to pack the car with all my equipment and I still have to clean the set. But that’s for tomorrow. For now I am happy that we got it all done.
