The never ending planning for a 5 minitue movie.
Alfred Hitchcock once said that a successful film needs 3 things; a good script, a good script, a good script. Considering our script was not really changed a great deal, we were relying on how our film was going to be visually told.
To make this possible, there was a hell of a lot of planning involved. As this was the first project, and I am directing, I wanted to make sure everything was right before the filming beigns this upcoming weekend.
First thing that needed to be done was assigning roles. I held up my hand for the role of the director. Not becasue I didn't want to do anything else, I just felt like I wanted the responsibility of making sure everything was perfect. I consider myself a perfectionist when it comes to film.
The next job was finding the cast. This seemed to start off well, but it went a bit hectic when our lead actor dropped out and we were stuck with no one.
The script didn't have many characters originally, and as we re-edited, we found that we only really need two actors. Rosie's character was very small, and I had a friend who was ideal for that one-liner. We found Greg's character fairly quickly as he happened to know Sam in our group. Dan's character was where it got complicated.
As he is the lead role, we wanted someone who was not just good at acting, but someone who can be emoptionally vulnerable and be quite unlikable and at the same time, being likable. The original actor dropped out for reasons I don't even know, so I made a few calls to see who could fill in last minute. I couldn't find anyone who was available or wanted to do it. It then hit me that the character of Dan had similar qualities of one of my friends. I asked him if he had acted before, for which he replied, "I did child acting/modelling". I said that was good enough for me. I have no worries about his ability to perform well as he is more dedicated than any other actor would of been. For example he is shaving his beard for the role, and believe me, thats a big deal for him.
The next big step was getting permission. We had to get permission to film everywhere if we want this film to not have any copyright issues. I always thought that this would be the most daunting task of the whole project. However, we mangaed to find it fairly simple. We had some trouble getting to film in the library at the university, but after persistance, we finally got the permission.
The most fun part of the whole process of permission was getting permission from the pub. We decided to use the Green Park Tavern as I was quite familier with it, as I am a local there. When the manager asked us what we were going to film in the pub, I simply replied that we were going to steal your alcohol! He gave me a query look, but I reassured him that we were going to give him the alcohol back. He seemed really pleasent and helpful, and I am looking forward to filming in there.
- Green Park Tavern in Bath
After permission was finished, and the risk assesments were done, the actors were ready, the shot list was devised - everything seemed like it was going to plan. Unfortunately it didn't last. Our main camera man dropped out of the filming weekend due to him having toe have surgery.
Things were looking bad. We had all the ingredients to cook a good meal, but no idea how to use the oven. To overcome this, me and Lori today asked for another camera tutorial. Richard Wood (technician) managed to fit us in. We learnt the basics (I use the term lightly considering the size of the thing) of the camera. Hopefully we will remember how to turn the damm thing on when it comes to it.
As the weekend quickly apporaches, I am looking forward to it and bricking it. No doubt will it be very fun and very useful on an experience level, but I don't think the planning would be the last of our cock-ups. Hopefully we will be able to think of solutions for any of the problems that may occur.
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