Pre-Production second time round

Pre-Production - again!
Tackling through the paperwork a second time round.

Yet again, it was time to tick off the to do list for my next film. I decided to work with a different group this time round, simply because I wanted to work with people I knew better, and just experience other people's perspectives. When picking the scripts, there was quite a wide selection to choose from. Although, there were very few I liked and wanted to film. When picking 3 I liked, I wanted to choose the one which I thought people wouldn't do and would be difficult to film.

'Take Care', written by Eve Beddows was definitely my first choice. After reading the script, I seemed to come up with ideas almost straight of how to film it. Another aspect that intrigued me to do the script was the challenge of the room turning upside down in the last scene. After discussing with my group we got started with tackling the project with the pre-production.

We wanted to keep most of the script the same, and just changing minor things. For example we changed a few of the signs due to us not being able to find the right type of locations. We also decided to change things due to risk assessments. For example the main character drove a car, and almost crashes. Instead we used a bike nearly biking into someone.

One of our main changes however was to cut out the dialogue and have music running through it. It was my idea to do this. The reason for this choice was me being influenced by the short film James Rafn's, She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not. The film seems to be so visually beautiful and and a compelling, intense story without using any dialogue. It is not as if the dialogue in the script was bad, but more so as if it wasn't needed. As the film is going to be consisting of many short fast shots, I think the music will help pick up the tempo of the film and give it that lighter touch it needs, especially as the punchline at the end of the film is unrealistic yet very light-hearted. The music to me seemed like it would be very fitting, especially how I wanted it more visually expressed. We managed to get some music written by music students at Uni which hopefully is going to be suitable for the film and its tempo.

Locations

This time round I had more trouble to get the locations I wanted. Getting the house scene was fine, as my house was suitable. Although I had more problems finding the office in which most of story is told. We went through the whole of town trying to find a suitable office that would let us film there. Of course, some of the buildings are owned by the government, therefore, getting permission to film there is unquestionable. We had a few promises but I got an email back on the week of shooting that they were unable to let us film there. I was getting pretty desperate until I decided to walk around Oldfield Park in which I found Madison and Oakley, an estate agents on Moorland Road. The guy who owned the place was really helpful giving us a big window amount of time to film in. I was almost shocked when he said yes, as I was expecting him to say no, with him working on the day of the shoot.

Casting
Casting was very easy this time, as we only really needed one character and the rest more like extras. We found our main actor straight who was Sam's housemate. He studies Performing Arts, which was a bonus because my last film's main actor hadn't studied acting before. As for the extras we just used anyone who was available in on the day. We had two people helping us out who was in the film briefly. I also brought my shirt and tie in case I had to jump in.

Assigning Roles

This time round I was much more reluctant to be Director again. Although I am Director again. Although I dod think it will be much easier this time as my group members seem to be more talkative and expressive with their own ideas. Rachel took the job as editing. As we are having music running through the who film, she says she has had experience with editing music videos. Sam took the role of camera man which is what he wanted to do originally in the first film but couldn't due to him having toe surgery. Adi decided to production planner due to him not being here while filming takes place.



After the main components were sorted, all was left was to fill in the paper work. It seemed to be much easier this time round as I knew how it worked and how to fill in the papers correctly. Also as we had little locations, it was much easier to fill out the Risk Assessments.

I am hoping filming is going to go well, and I am looking forward to putting my ideas into practice. As I am directing again, it should be interesting to see if I had learnt from my mistakes from last time.