Filming.

So, we had two days of filming and here is how they panned out...

Day 1: Eight AM start, ring Edem (our policeman) and see if he's up. Get all the Costumes and props together. Get the bus in to uni for ten. Turned out there was a slight lapse in communication and the rest of the team and actors didn't arrive until twelve. Me and Edem used the time constructively getting him dressed and in the mind set of a policeman on the scene of an accident/incident/MURDER...

When the others arrived it took a while to get the whole signed in thing sorted (we had to sign in at the university gates for security reasons), but once that was done we could head down to the lake (our set for the day).

There were a few slight technical issues with the camera but we had Chaz and Mike on scene to sort it.

We were down by the lake for around six hours filming around four or five minutes of footage and it was a very cold day. I didn't envy Michael or Joe who I had made incredibly short shorts for. During this time we were able to capture a lot of footage of swans and ducks on the lake, which will work brilliantly cut in to the rest of the footage.

Handling the rabbit was greatly improved by the fact Michael was happy to cut off its foot himself. I wasn't particularly looking forward to doing it myself. Seeing the animal on camera reassured me about the decision to find a real one, as it brings something more real and dark to the film, which has a few 'silly' aspects to it.

The biggest problem with the shoot was, Michael didn't turn up until later on in the shoot so we decided to film the couple of shots where Charlie is cradling her dead sun (Joe). Unwittingly by doing this shot first we set ourselves up for a retroactive shoot, which is a lot harder for continuity reasons. For instance Joe got blood on his shirt which of course he couldn't have for earlier shots. Luckily I brought a spare shirt and we were just extra carfull for the next shots. At the end of the day we got all the shots we needed, and we all felt the day was a success.

Day 2: A very disastrous day. Again, there were problems with cast members which meant we didn't start filming until three, though many of us had been at Charli's house since eleven. So this caused the first major problem, which was we ran out of light. Which also meant we rushed a lot of the filming.

The second major issue was the boom mic started crackling and it was picked up on the recording. I don't know how much tape was unusable, we tried to work through it hoping enough would be salvageable. We even used Laurence's digital camcorder, but it felt a little like it was all in vain.

The filming experience was a lot different with Team Domin-8 to my last team. It was a lot more of a creative environment where we could all bounce ideas off each other. Larry welcomed my input on what shots should be taken and from where, asking my advice on several occasions. Though not everything went to plan, we got a lot of good shots and if Laurence can't make it into a film... no one can.