A No-Plan Production

Production was where things began to go downhill. We had a script that I was happy with, but although I was satisfied with production, I wasn't too confident in it.

The first problem was the actor for Erin, Will. I'm not criticising his acting ability, he did the best he could and did well enough, but he wasn't told until we were literally driving to the first location that he was the lead character. The sheer lack of forethought there, not only giving the actor a nasty surprise but also meaning he couldn't have learnt his lines in advance was a bad decision on Sam's part, since he was the one who arranged for Will to play the part.

When we got to Sam's house to do the first scene, we had planned well enough that the principle camera would be the one operated by Paul on the Merlin Steadicam, and the other would have the day-for-night filter on constantly and would be operated hand-held by myself. We quickly moved through the shot list, starting with the final part of the scene since then the day-for-night part would be over and done with. Next, we essentially shot in order, starting in the bedroom and then finishing in the kitchen. Although we shot very quickly and efficiently, this would become a problem later.

After that, we travelled to Will's house to shoot the second scene. On the way, I filmed the journey on the day-for-night camera. Most of it was unusably shaky as the car bumped up and down, but a short usuable segment was eventually used in the final cut.

Once there, we shot the kitchen scene fast, and then we were done. If this seems overly quick to you, I felt the same as I left the location. Although technically we got all the shots I had planned, often altering what I had in mind to fit the location, there was this feeling, to me at least, like we were rushing through too fast, getting only one or two takes that weren't satisfactory, but we moved on regardless since it felt like it wasn't going to get any better. Better to get one bad take than waste your time getting five equally bad takes. This, I fully admit, is my own fault and no-one else's. I should have pushed to get more takes, to get better takes, but I didn't. Thus, I failed as a director.

That's pretty much it for production. It went by so quick there wasn't really any big triumphs or challenges, just "what do we need to get this shot, get the shot, what's next". Someone I must highlight as a particularly strong worker was Paul, who did everything you'd expect a cameraman to do. He practiced ahead of time with the Merlin, balancing it and everything, and the very fact that he chose to operate a Z1 with a Merlin is something to commend in of itself, let alone the fact that he was the most organised and professional of us all.

It was only later that what we had done in production hit home.