Locaction Doc Drama (PRODUCTION DIARY)

22/9/14

SHOT FOR SHOT REMAKE #1
Everyone in the class was tasked with selecting and pitching any film scene of their choice that could end up being recreated shot for shot the only criteria being that the clip could be no longer than two minutes and it would be a continues scene not cutting away to another location and also have a reasonable number of actors/props that would not be to difficult to cast/find.

The pitches would be made in front of Diane and the rest of the class to not only help us build our confidence talking in front of what was then a group of new people but so we could also get constructive criticism to problems that maybe the pitcher had over looked with all the feedback going into the final decision made by Diane and Mike.


When trying to select an appropriate scene for my pitch I went straight to my extensive DVD collection to seep through and use as reference despite having this great resource I still found it very difficult to select a scene that I thought would work because a lot of scenes I originally planned always had the same problem either a really difficult location to find or hard props to get.

Despite that set back by the day it came to pitch a scene I had narrowed it down to two clips (The Great Dictator and Liar Lair) because people had done there pitches just before me and I had seen the feedback they had received back I had a good idea of how my pitch for Liar Liar would of went down so I scrapped it.

The problem with Lair Lair would of been the same one a lot of people had in the group (location) but I more specifically would of had the same problem as Simon if i had pitched Liar Liar who also needed a men's toilets for his location.  

But more specifically vintage toilets with a specific style or layout which simply does not exist around this area and would be to big of a set build.

I speech scene from the Great Dictator that I ended up pitching would of not had a location problem because it could of simply been done using a backdrop but the main reason this scene was not picked is because there was little to no camera movement so it would of not been a good challenge to attempt to recreate it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87w655s3xKc Liar Liar scene 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FMNFvKEy4c  Great Dictator scene

If I could do the pitch again I would of used the cooler scene from The Great Escape this scene would of been great to use because it is located in two identical rooms next to each other but with the use of editing you would only need one room and just film 2 scenes separately. If needed I could see it easily being done as a set build with the most difficult part finding WW2 period clothing the more I think about it the more I wish I had thought of this before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZa79QGDeo8 Great Escape

SHOT FOR SHOT REMAKE #2

After everyone in the class pitched there 2 minute scene to be potentially recreated we all finally had word the 4 winners where IT,Terminator 2 and Psycho and One flew over the cuckoos nest which was for-fitted because the pitcher Drew was not present.

                                                    Drawn by (Jamie Gibson)


06/10/14
Today is the day everyone in the group was given 1 or 2 job roles for there Location Drama. I was assigned as both production manager and Director of the behind the scenes documentary for Psycho.

07/10/14
The original plan for the day was to have a production meeting just about finding an actress but because the director Jamie was off I and 3 other members of the group took it upon ourselves to also start to sort out locations which we did and actually visited a potential one (leisure center) took some photos and also made a phone call to Hartlepool FC. 

Whilst talking about actresses we may of stumbled upon a willing one who just over heard our conversation and showed interest they are also a student at CCAD but despite the progress we need to look more into both location and actress as neither are set in stone yet.

Some Pictures from leisure centre location scout I took of the only rooms that would of been available which where a disabled toilet and changing room unable to take anything down from the walls and lack of space for equipment and crew and the tremendous noise coming from both children and flowing water from the near by pools meant we would not be able to use this as a location.

8/10/14
Attempted to join the casting Facebook page Four Bridges today with not a lot of success.

09/10/14

After joining a Facebook group yesterday called Four bridges that was recommended for us as a suitable place we could potentially find an actress for our scene remake by the second year students who have had good past experience when finding a cast for there productions. There is still no reply so while we waited to be accepted into the group we have started to take a closer look at the scene and back checking with BBFC if there is 1 or more alternative cuts to the scene because of censorship.

classifaction and cuts in film http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/psycho-film

13/10/14
Because Mike is still off poorly i will be spending the morning working on trying to get a Norman Bates costume after looking for one online i have come to the decision with the director to explore other options such as asking the costume students if they have anything that will suit the role or will be willing to create one from scratch.

27/10/14
After receiving an email back from Hartlepool FC about there facilities not being a possible filming location and already 6 weeks into the module we looked into the idea of filming some shots on location at either Jamie/Glenn's student accommodation and the rest as a set build.

I Jamie and Glenn went to the accommodation to check it out and take some photos on a phone to get an idea of what it would look like and the space we would have for equipment and crew when actually filming

As one of my jobs as production manager it is my job to collect and control the budget which the group agreed would total £150 with everyone chipping in £25 as of this day i had collected £100 with just Daniel and Glenn's left to be collected later in the week.

After asking the costume students about a Norman bates mother costume Jamie decided being so close to Halloween to just order one online with his own money and use the costume for both the shoot and as a party

30/10/14

The Norman Bates costume arrived today just in time for Halloween the only the dress and wig was included so we are planning to have to look around the costume shop in the town or maybe Halloween isles in shops for the knife before it is to late

3/11/14

Phoned up Beth Wood the CCAD student who showed interest at one of our production meetings to play the role of Marion the shower victim during the phone call an audition was arranged. The audition is set to take place on the 5/11/14 at 3 o clock in the studio and will be filmed for purposes of the documentary.

5/11/14

2 cameras where booked out for the audition with Beth in the studio and £5 of the budget was spent on tapes so we would have something to record on I was boom operator Nathan and Glenn where camera while Jamie was doing all the talking. After talking about what we where planning Jamie went on to explain how we would achieve certain shots as well as dates and locations of filming and what we would need we also collected her contact information as well as adding her to our Facebook group. Since her hair is a little to short for the part and bright pink she helped us by telling us about a wig shop in Middleton grange that we could go to to sort out the problem of hair

10/11/14
All the necessary paperwork we would need was printed out ready to filled in the Grand Hotel was selected as the  location for the hardest shot of the shoot the missing 4th wall pan and curtain pull and tiles for the walls was sorted out

14/11/14
We contacted Beth to see if she was available to go wig shopping she was and we purchased one short blonde wig for £25 the only prop we are waiting for now is the fake knife which still has not arrived despite being ordered online over a week ago we may have to order again or look into alternatives

16/11/14 
With £69 of the budget left Jamie asked me to go to Argos to buy an exact shower head that is perfect for the scene unfortunately neither the Peterlee or Hartlepool Argos had any in stock not willing to wait up to 2 weeks as we are so close to filming we decided to look into alternative shower heads.

17/11/14
Because Jamie was unable to hand the equipment release form into lee on the previous Friday after in time before he left we can not start shooting on Monday at Jamie's accommodation  like we had planned so we wrote out another form in hopes of start filming which has not happened yet because the other groups have booked the equipment for the there shoots at the time we would of been able to film so we have ended up booking everything to start shooting for the


18/11/14
The fake knife that was ordered online finally arrived which is a relief as it is a very important prop
we also had a production meeting about the set build which is becoming another pressing issue as there seems to not be any way we can think of to cheat the shots.

Also bought a shower head and ingredients for creating our own fake blood and did some tests in flowing water to see how it would react and if it creates staines or marks which thankfully it does not. I also completed a lot of health and safety paperwork and forms.

19/11/14

Started filming the actual scene and ran into a lot of unforeseen problems including the tiles,tattoos which sounds worse than it is but actually benefits us as only 1 shot would of been useful because Beth's tattoos could not be hidden because the skin coloured nude suit had yet to arrive in the post

22/11/14

The Skin coloured nude suit arrived in the post today which would of been very useful for the previous shoot but since that was only the first shoot and had lots of problems it benefits the future shoots more anyway.

24/11/14

Filmed at least one video interview with everyone in the crew including self really happy with how it turned out and the backdrop that we set up using things lying about in the studio and objects lying around the corridor.In the afternoon we took all the tapes up to the edit room and watched some of what we filmed so far we have a lot of usable stuff for the documentary and very little for the actual drama as the rushes did not turn out as good as originally thought and there was problems with the mise en scene.

26/11/14

Shit went down today despite living 20 mins away Jamie the director and the only person with who can let us in his accommodation room where our shooting location is was distracted all day whilst the rest of the crew where in on time sitting around waiting for him by the time he gets here there will be no more time to film and after checking my emails beth has talked with mike about not being sure when the next shoot is so everything is going wrong to make things worse I and the crew found out later Jamie was lying about what was distracting him.

27/11/14

Filmed more for both drama and doc things are looking good we where more organised this time and had solutions to the problems we experienced on the first shoot also paid £5 for drew to very nicely drive the equipment to the location 

1/12/14

Filming unable to go in bathroom during filming the actress Beth forgot her bra so we had to work around that and to make it more comfortable on her the crew that was not needed backed of so no behind the scenes was shot for the documentary instead we managed to get a few interviews with people including Beth.

5/12/14

Booked equipment for next Monday also bought more fake tiles for the shoot after the ones we are using are starting to get worn out and a location for the final and hardest shot has been arranged.

8/12/14 

Did more filming

5/1/15

Production meeting headed by me about editing Documentary also finally got a chance to capture the tapes after a while in which only one machine would capture and more than half of the edit sweet was having technical problems.

7/1/15

Filmed probably one of the hardest shots of the shoot where the camera has to track forwards passed the actress and  into the shower curtain just before Norman Bates pulls it open.The shot took a lot of time and preparation to set up because Norman had to be lit in a very specific way with lots of backlighting to make him appear almost like a silhouette.

We also had to bring in a back drop wall and paddling pool and re arranged the living room that was the location we filmed at.

Only me Jamie and Glenn where there for the majority of the day Nathan turned up later at shooting time and as we where short handed we had to ask for assistance for some people who lived at the location to pour a watering can and hold up a shower curtain which i did for a bit but was not quite tall enough to keep it quite high enough.

No documentary was shot for this as it would of complicated things and as director of the documentary i feel we have more than enough of behind the scenes footage from the previos shoots.

8/1/15
Scanned and uploaded paperwork (Release Forms,Risk Assessments) to the vle not 100 percent sure how much or what else we need.

9/1/15
Whilst editing on both the drama and doc today we realised we had some shots missing such as Norman running out of the room since it isn't that hard to get 2 people went and got it on a dinner break.

EXTRA NOTES

WISHLIST FOR PROPS WE THOUGHT WE NEEDED  http://www.amazon.co.uk/registry/wishlist/12O7DI0PZM9CB

LOTS OF PROBLEMS OCCURRED WHILST PUTTING THIS TOGETHER OVER THE WEEKS

A LOT OF THE TIME WHEN I WAS ADDING TO THIS TIDYING UP TEXT ADDING EXTRA  PICTURES ON BOTH MY PHONE AND COMPUTER IT DID NOT SEEM TO SAVE CORRECTLY EVEN THOUGH IT SAID IT HAD SAVED SO THERE IS A STRONG CHANCE THAT A LOT OF  WHAT I ORIGINALLY ADDED IS MISSING