Post 18: Production Report

Production Report

The day of filming our production finally came together on Sunday 4^th of March 2011.

The Plan of the Day
The plan was for the production team to arrive at my house for 10am sharp, to give us an hour to set up before the actors would arrive at 11am. A mis- communication between myself and the actors meant that they had actually only planned to come later on in the day (after 12). I thought that this was going to be a serious problem, as we would not have enough time to film. I naïvely thought that we would have the house set up within the hour, and then be sitting around with nothing to do for a couple of hours resulting in me being blamed for wasting time. In reality things went very differently and this time gap that we were dealing with actually worked to our advantage. When we had all arrived, we held a production meeting and this enabled us to plan out the day and organise who would be setting up and preparing the different things in preparation for the arrival of our actors.

This is a photo of the simple task list we made in our initial meeting which gave everyone a clear picture of what they had to do. It also gives a list of what to do once the actors have arrived, as there would not be any spare time to be messing around, unaware of what to do.

After this meeting we then went about setting up the house. The first task that Nicola and I had to do, was to photograph the house and especially the office where we were filming a large proportion of the production. We took photos of where everything was, in order for us to put everything back in the same place, which is part of the marking criteria. This is a crucial part of any film, especially when filming out of their own studios. For example I went to visit the set of the film “King Arthur”, a large proportion of which was filmed in Ballymoore Eustace, Republic of Ireland, and the set was right next to my aunties country house. My uncle took me to the set and saw that they were photographing the surrounding area and woodland. He explained exactly why they were doing it, “to make sure it all looks the same when they leave”.

 http://www.rexwallpapers.com/wallpaper/King-arthur-4/
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DUBLIN, IRELAND - JUNE 2: A general view of part of the set that is being constructed at Ballymore Eustace for the Jerry Bruckheimer film 'King Arthur' June 2, 2003 in County Kildare, Ireland.>>>

http://www.life.com/image/2049976

These photos show examples of the office at my house and show how the detail and order of which some of the many items such as nutritional supplements and body butters. There were also a large number of books which would have to be put back in the correct order as well as the main feature, the desk which we would be using, and this would have to be put back to where it was as well as the items such as the laptop and telephone.


While myself and Nicola were in the office, Tim, Ryan and Mrs Shipp were in the living room and one of the biggest issues that they were dealing with is the lights. In the Richards household, were are a big fan of halogen ceiling spot lights and therefore the living room has 12 of them. This is very good for lighting the room up but it gave the whole room a much warmer feeling then was desired and made the whole room look very yellow and artificial.


In order to counteract this, blue gels were administered onto all the lights to create more natural light. The idea was to start the film with no blue gels, creating a warm feeling, then at around scene 8, the 1/4 gels would be added and then by scene 10 the 1/2 gels would be added. This would really help us with creating the desired cool atmosphere.


Below is how it looked:

We then thought that if it was to blue, we could actually warm it up again using the 85 lens, which is not attached to any lights, it is administered straight on the camera, in front of the lens. 

Looking at this photo, it is very clear on the effects of the 85 lens, as you can see how clearly it has transformed a dull, boring day into a sunny slightly orange but none the less, beautiful day. This is a very easy way to transform an image and give it a very different kind of feeling.

The Actors

The actors or cast that are starring in my production of Synchronicity are very close family friends but complete newbies to the rest of my production group. They are a South American – Columbian family and after the mishap of them turning up about three hours later than we had anticipated, things actually worked out very well and to our complete advantage as we wouldn’t have had enough time to set up otherwise. The stars of my production are:

Isabel Earey

Age 12

Character – Isabel (Daughter)

Judith Earey

Age 33

Character – Lisa (Mother)

Louis Fernandez Marin

Age 23

Character - Simon (Father)

Filming

Once the actors had come, Nicola went about dressing them whilst I ran through the dialogue they needed to say for the scene ahead. This went very well and I was pleased to see that the actors, who were a complete outside cast/family of Columbian origin who have a extremely strong south American/Spanish accent, had revised my script as I had given it to them three weeks prior to the filming day. I was extremely pleased at how the crew worked with them, even though some may have found them difficult to understand and communicate with but the crew worked very well with them and I am sure everyone came away from the day with one or two more friends.

Whilst Nicola and I were running through the clothing and the script with our actors, Tim and Ryan were going through camera angles, shots and the lighting needed.

Once this had all been done, we then started filming our production. Below are some photos of the preparation before the filming and a few photos of the crew during filming.