Story-Telling: Filming Day 1

My script is complete, my pre-production is done and now I can start filming. 

Day 1:

The Waiting Room

I had arranged for my crew to meet me at The Maidstone Studios at 10:30am so we could begin filming at 11:00am. Of course I turned up late and my crew were waiting for me. Before doing anything else I checked that my locations were still available. Once I had done this I went to see Fergus, our technician, to pick up my booked camera equipment. Unfortunately my equipment was not available straight away because someone else still needed to bring it back. This meant I had to wait around until it was available. Instead of sitting around doing nothing, my crew and I set up our location. We had to turn one of our lecture rooms into a hospital waiting room.  Once this was done I called my actress in and we rehearsed the scenes we were going to shoot.

Once we had finished the rehearsals the equipment was available to so I picked it up and we began setting it all up. Next I gave a health and safety briefing, let everyone know what I was planning to shoot and we got started. First we shot scene 3, which wasn't too difficult as it was just a conversation between my two main characters. Next we shot scene 4, which was meant to be set later on in the day and was also not too difficult because again it was just a conversation between my two main characters. After we had done all this we had a lunch break.

After lunch I booked out the camera track and set it up in the waiting room. I pushed a row of chairs forward and set the track up behind it. We then re-shot parts of both scenes, mostly the walking parts, using the track to get some nice filler and establishing shots. Finally we used the track to shoot a time-lapse sequence that is going to be used to show the time passing between scenes 3 and 4. Once all this was complete we packed up and reset the room.

The shoot went really well. Even though we had a couple of set backs, we managed to finish on time and I managed to get all the shots I needed. My crew and cast were amazing and very cooperative. I think I directed everyone very well, and even though I wasn't behind the camera I think I managed to get the exact shots I had in mind, and I think this was down to my detailed shot lists.