On the first day of filming, I was well-prepared: I groomed the dog for filming the previous night, had made my actor fully aware of filming times and had gathered and briefly tested all my required props and equipment ready for an early and plain-sailing start the following morning. Being well organised prior to production helped immensely as we were almost straight out of the door with everything ready - this meant that we had lots of time to travel to our location and film. My actor (Elliott), dog and I arrived at Thetford Forest by 11am and dedicated the next twenty minutes to finding an exact spot to film in.
We found an empty road, which prompted the idea of adding a road in the beginning to represent the start of a metaphorical journey, so we decided to film a couple shots here. However, it was surrounded by net fencing which wouldn't have looked appropriate on camera and therefore required careful framing to make sure it was out of the shot. Furthermore, the road was occasionally used by vehicles so we had to be cautious using the spot as we had a dog who could easily run out into the traffic. To maintain safety, we tied Riot to a nearby tree away from the road and made sure to keep an eye out for any cars coming towards us. A problem I had encountered when beginning filming was that the image didn't look exactly how I wanted, so I spent a little time adjusting the settings on the camera to make the footage less sharp and contrasted - this would mean I could do more to the footage in post-production. This time wouldn't have been wasted if I dedicated some time the night before to changing the settings and experimenting with the picture. On the other hand, it only took a few minutes and therefore didn't waste too much time. We filmed the first couple shots of the character walking through his scenery smoothly before moving on to a more scenic/rural looking area.
We found another area that I liked: it was overgrown and brown and really looked like a post-apocalyptic setting when paired with the costumed character. It also had so much sunlight seeping through the trees and looked stunning on camera. We set up the equipment and tied Riot to a tree again to avoid him running off, as we noticed a steep cliff that we didn't want him to fall down when we weren't keeping an eye on him.
We filmed the shots carefully and I was relatively happy with the footage. Then we encountered a huge problem; Riot had broken his lead to break free from the tree and run to us. The lead was completely destroyed and unusable, so there was no way to keep him fully under control and stop him from running around, getting in shot and potentially putting himself at risk. Furthermore, with the cliff nearby we knew we had to move away from this spot so we packed up the equipment and found a spot closer to the public footpath where Riot would have definitely had been safe. This caused an issue because several people were walking past and distracting Riot during his scenes, so we had to wait for the people to pass by everytime, really delaying filming. This was an even larger issue due to the fact we were losing light as the late afternoon was approaching quickly and it was soon dusk so we couldn't afford to waste time when we hadn't filmed the necessary shots, let alone backups. Once we had filmed the last shots it was a matter of waiting to be picked up again while holding Riot so he didn't run into the road.
One of the main issues I felt I faced during production was the weather. I scheduled filming that specific day because the weather was scheduled to be sunny which was the look I wanted for my footage. It was sunny for the most part of the day, however, clouds formed on and off during the day making the lighting conditions inconsistent on camera. Not only was the sunshine difficult, but it was bitterly cold, which grew very painful after spending the entire day outside. The coldness made handling the intricate equipment difficult. It also made both of us a little agitated and remaining in character (without shivering) proved to be a struggle for Elliott.
The environment we were based in was a problem, too. As I had purposely chosen overgrown spots, I was crawling through brambles and stinging nettles in an attempt to get the desired shot, which made filming painful and difficult. Some areas were dense so objects like trees got in the way of framing the image how I wanted to, which was the main problem filming in a natural location caused, as we couldn't rearrange the composition and set.
I also found I underestimated the time in which it would take to film, as even though I had kept in mind the fact that it would get dark early, I found myself racing against the clock to film the scenes. This has made me realise to, in future, leave a little more time for filming so I don't feel pressured and can take my time with making sure the footage is exactly how I want it to be.
After reviewing the footage that night, I realised that I didn't have very many back-up shots to use on the off chance the footage didn't make up the right time (two minutes) or I didn't like the look of the film. Although this wasn't too much of a big deal, it did make me keep in mind the fact that I may have to re-film shots and told Elliott to try and keep his schedule free in case of this event.
Day Two of Filming (15.1.17)
The day after the first date of filming, Rowan, Beth, Elliott and I met near the location (the disused wartime building in Watton) at around 12:30pm (when everyone was available). We set up the equipment and I did everyone's makeup ready for filming.
When we started to film the first shot, there was a loud motor noise so we immediately stopped on the off chance I needed to use the audio from the footage in the end (though I had decided that this wasn't a preferred idea, I just wanted to keep all my options open for the post-production stage). The source of the noise was soon established when a couple of people drove past us on mopeds in the building. We waited for them to drive away before continuing filming. This, obviously, took a little time out of the day but I wasn't too worried as the scenes we had to film were incredibly short.
We tried to film the scene again, but there was another odd noise coming from another room in the building. By this point, I was growing impatient and decided to continue filming regardless of the noise. However, we were soon interrupted by a couple of [assumably contractors or something]. They asked us to leave as we weren't permitted to be there, which surprised everyone as the building was regularly visited by locals and nobody had ever been asked to leave before.
Regardless, we packed up the equipment and left and by this point there was no time to refilm the scenes in the backup locations as we had no secured transport back to my village and would have had to walk (3 miles) which wouldn't have been a problem another time but we simply didn't have the time. Instead, we rescheduled another filming day to film the scenes.
The thing I learnt from this day was to definitely arrange longer filming times so that in the off chance something goes wrong again, I have enough time to work around the problem.
Day Three of Filming (26.1.17)
After the disaster the previous week, I dedicated the entire day to filming and arranged meeting for 10 am. We chose to film at the backup locations instead of the initially planned location to avoid being asked to leave again.
As we came to meet, we found ourselves waiting on my actress for a while, until suddenly she called and told me she had to cancel meeting us. I contemplated contacting one of the other actresses I had considered for the role but decided I wasn't going to waste any more time contacting and waiting for someone who may not even be able to perform. I decided to take on the role myself. This wasn't too much of a bad decision, as I knew what I wanted for the character and knew the character well, having constructed her myself. Furthermore, the scenes were so short (literally one shot) that it wouldn't have been worth waiting for a new actress to arrive.
When we had begun to film the scenes at the 'chapel', we were interrupted by farm traffic exiting the airfield through the gate that was right next to our location. It didn't take long for them to pass, but soon after they were gone, an elderly couple who were geocaching came scouting around the area. They asked us what we were doing out of curiosity and we all ended up engaging in a conversation with them before they left, which obviously delayed filming a bit. We filmed the scenes required for the location before crossing the road to the next location.
This went well with no distractions, but we found that the location was just so brambly and overgrown with nettles and crawling on the floor etc. was proving a very painful task. It then began to rain when recording the flashback sequence. In spite of this, we pushed on and we soon had filming completely wrapped up by 2 pm.
One drawback to this day was the weather - it was a lot duller than the previous week and there was little to no sunshine so assembling the footage together may look quite inconsistent. Although, the dull and rainy weather worked really well in the flashback sequence as the violent nature corresponds with the hideous weather. However, the scene connecting to the present day footage may need to be colour corrected to really look similar. Furthermore, I forgot to change the camera settings before filming so the footage was a little too sharp for my liking.
All in all, regardless of the delays and setbacks, filming was successful and the footage looks similar to what I had in mind. I think my organisation really put me at an advantage as I had all the equipment plus back-ups eg. multiple fully charged camera batteries etc. However, I could have dedicated more filming time to work around mistakes and problems. I found that having my storyboards was useful as I could work off of what I had for inspiration so I knew exactly what I was doing on the day of filming.
