Filming Day 1: Disaster

I have just returned home from my first 'day' of filming. It wasn't a day, it was around 2 hours. First of all we went to film the split screen scene. I had planned to film this on Thursday but we had time until we could get into the location for the opening and closing scenes in the cafe.

This was a challenge, we couldn't get the split screen to stand up. We fixed this by having Harry (who isn't in this scene) hold the top of it steady out of shot. The idea of the scene was the characters were doing things in synchronised while it looks like they are in separate locations but it is revealed they are at the same place. Getting them to perform tasks at the same time took some practise but we got it to work. Then, another character was meant to remove the split screen, breaking the fourth wall. This didn't look right as their head was out of shot. Instead the partition falls down.

Then we filmed shots 21-36, the running scene. This worked well and I didn't need to change anything.

Here's a taster.

 Then the time came to go to the cafe. We arrived at 11.30 and it was meant to be open at 1, but it was shut. I rang the number to the establishment and there was no answer. We hung around for a while and came back but still approaching 12.30 it wasn't open and their was still no answer on the phone. This messed up my days plans. We looked around town for another cafe we could film in. It needed to be independently owned as big corporations tend not to let you film. We found one and got permission, but it wasn't right. The layout didn't allow for the shots I had storyboarded. In the end I decided not to film their but wait until I could get in contact with the owners of my original location.

The bad news didn't end there. One of my actors had to leave to be somewhere else. This prevented me getting any other filming done.

So, overall a bad day. It's just a good thing I had scheduled to film another day as well. I will get in contact with So Bar before then to clarify they will be open. I have also spoken to my actors to make sure they are free all day.