19/10/2016 - Potential Location
So we have spent most of the past week trying to find a good location for the majority of the shoot. Whilst there are forest areas around Sunderland, they are not particularly large or dense enough. Ben in our group however, lives in Hexham and therefore knows good forest areas near his house very well and has helped us all decide on a potential location. We hope to visit it in the next week or so
27/10/2016 - Visiting the Forest
Today we finally got round to visiting the forest. It wasn't quite as ideal for me as I had been up at the RVI in Newcastle for a hospital appointment around the time we were meant to be heading there. After this I drove back to Sunderland to pick up Emma before finally driving up to Hexham to check out the wood. At this point, we met up with Carlton and Ben and had a walk through the woodland which looked particularly nice. I was spectical doing so however as I was still very pushed for time, being due to start work at 5PM; it was around 4:15PM by the time we were in the middle of the forest, about 10 minutes walk from the car. Eventually, once I felt I had seen enough to back to the car to try and get to work, although with rush hour traffic on the Newcastle Central Motorway, I still ended up being around 25 minutes late, although I was able to just make this owed time up at the start of another shift. Whilst we were at the forest, Carlton had taken location photos on his DSLR which he then uploaded to our Dissertation Facebook group.
09/11/2016 - Meeting With Ian
Today oversaw our first group meeting with Ian McPake regarding our film where we presented to him our ideas such as a potential script, the location etc. During this meeting, we were told that the forest maybe wasn't the best location in mind for filming, especially as we were planning on possibly staying and filming in tents. With this in mind, we set ourselves on finding a new location. Carlton had a Barn/Bunkhouse in mind which he thought would be perfect for the film and despite looking largely nice on the online photos, cost over £1000 and was all the way in Cumbria although we would have more than enough cars to take people down. Leanne, our producer, is planning to ring up the owner to possibly discuss a lower price.
14/12/2016 - First Casting Call
This afternoon we had our first Casting Call for the film
02/12/2016 - Kickstarter
To help with the expenses of catering for the actors, petrol and funding the barn itself, we spent today filming a kickstarter video to try and raise funds. The set up for it was not great; we used Carlton's DSLR to film it however we only used an onboard mic so the sound was quite distant. It probably would have been more effective if we had used clip on mics or detached the onboard mic and moved it closer. After a few takes we finally had something we were somewhat happy with.
08/12/2016 - The Pitch
Today was the day of the pitch for the film, it actually went much better than we all previously thought it did; I personally did not find it overly nerve-racking or anything and both Ian and Darren seemed happy with the overall pitch.
18/12/2016 - The Barn Booking
Over the past few days, Lianne managed to negotiate a price with Freddy, the owner of the barn and managed to knock it down to around £130 each for 4 nights, working out at around just over £700, or an extra £20 each for a fifth night if we feel we will need the Friday too. As well as a £200 refundable deposit.
31/01/2017
Filming finally started today bright and early. We started off by filming at Lianne's house in the morning for the scenes of Casey packing. I ended up having a cameo role in this as her brother knocking on the door to tell her that Dan and Clarissa were outside. We then filmed the scenes of the car driving off. At this point, I had to leave filming to present Spark's Drivetime show while they filmed the scenes of Clarissa leaving at a friend's house.
02/02/2017
The second day of filming took place today at Ryan's granddads house where we filmed one of the dream sequences before moving back to my house where we filmed two of the dream sequences: one with Scarlett's dad and one with Scarlett's brother. Both of these scenes were filmed quickly and we were able to wrap up easily.
06/03/2017 - The Barn - Day 1
So today has been the first day down at the barn and it has actually gone quite well.
To begin with, the barn is just as nice as it was displayed on the photos, and in terms of actual filming, pretty much everything was kept to schedule and we did not run behind. The only slight problem we had was that we couldn’t film one of the outdoor scenes as it began to rain in the evening.
The only issue we do have is that the nearest town to the barn is Penrith which is over a 20 minute drive away, not quite ideal if you’re planning on rush to the shops in a hurry.
07/03/2017 - Day 2
We started off the day by filming the breakfast scene where Amy was missing, whilst this scene went alright. After this however, we then started filming the outdoor football scenes which were originally going to be filmed on Monday.
We had a few issues here as the Tascam ran out of batteries which meant we had to run to the shop which took around 40 minutes. We also had issues with the Walkie Talkies that we bought for the shoot running out of batteries. Despite a shaky start, we managed to get all the scenes filmed that we wanted to on the day.
08/03/2017 - Day 3
Unlike a few issues yesterday, filming overall went really well today meaning we only have a small number of scenes remaining to film tomorrow. We finished the day off by filming the campfire scenes and after doing so, relaxed by the fire for a bit reflecting on what we needed to film tomorrow whilst also roasting a few remaining marshmallows. We are having an early night tonight however as we need to be up early for the big Scarlett scene tomorrow.
09/03/2017 - Day 4
Today was the last day of filming, (for the barn at least). Getting up at 7AM to film the early morning scene on the hill wasn't actually as bad as expected, partly because because regularly presenting the breakfast shows on Spark meant I was used to early mornings, further when everyone is also waking up at the same time it tends to be a lot easier than. Filming on the hill was a bit cold but not terrible. Once the equipment had been set up the scene actually went really well during the first take and Scarlet's acting was very good, being able to even cry for the scene. Unfortunately due to some audio issues due to both myself and Lianne we had to film the scene again. The second time went much better and the acting was just as good.
Following on from this we then sat around for a few hours where some of the actors and a couple of members of crew had a nap. Down the road from the barn, there was a disused petrol station which we thought looked very effective and as a result we decided to add a scene of Scarlett lost walking past the petrol station, this scene was much simpler to film as we only needed one camera. As a result, only myself, Ollie, Ben and Scarlett went to film this scene. As simpler and as short as the scene was however, it did take longer than thought to film as cars kept driving past during the scenes.
We then filmed the final few scenes with Scarlett waking up in the middle of the night and having a heart to heart with Clarissa, meaning we had successfully wrapped up filming on the night, which took a lot of pressure off the final day as we could just get up and go.
31/03/2017
Today has (hopefully) been the last day of filming. After some discussion, we decided to change the ending from the pub scene with all the friends to a scene of Scarlett being knocked over by a car whilst getting lost in the woods. There several reasons for this. Firstly, we were having issues finding time when we could get all the cast together to film at the same time due to other commitments whereas this new ending, only featured Scarlett. We also felt that the original ending was a bit boring and that the new ending would have more of a dramatic effect on the audience.
To begin with, we had Scarlett come into University to record the dialogue for the scene where she was lying on the road. Although we booked out the recording studio for this, we found it was much simpler to use the Spark off air studio as the recording quality was the same and everything was much simpler to use. Headphones were also available in the radio studio. We recorded the dialogue several times with no issues as well as some screaming sounds that we may use for when she gets hit by the car. As it was around 4PM when we finished, I then drove Scarlett back to her house as we felt it was unnecessary to have her wait around all day as we weren't going to be filming till around 9PM. Ryan and Carlton also came so we could scout a location for where she was going to be hit by the car.
For the actual shoot in the evening, we decided it was better to only take a few members of crew for this scene as Leanne was back home and Ollie was rather busy on the evening. Myself, Ben, Carlton and Scarlett headed out to Scarlett's house in Durham around 8.30 in the evening, however upon arriving we discovered that the camera had not been charged and therefore we had to give the camera to Scarlett to charge for around 20 minutes whilst we scouted for an appropriate location as we felt the one we had originally decided on wasn't great. We then picked up Scarlett and the camera and went to film. Unfortunately when we set up the shot, the camera then ran out of batteries so we had to drop it back off at Scarletts. We went to McDonalds to get food and came back around 30-40 minutes later to resume filming. After the disastrous start, we finally managed to film the scene successfully in several takes, although it was around 11:30PM by the time we had finished, much later than expected. We are hopefully that this should be the last day of filming, provided we do not require any reshoots at the barn.
04/05/2017 - Website Live
Today, the website has finally been completed, meaning we now have a strong multi-platform presence, the various behind the scenes content, such as photographs and vlogs, as well as trailer for the film, which Emma and Lianne edited together a few weeks back. When the final cut of the film has been handed in, it will be uploaded to the website.
08/05/2017
Today we have exported and handed in the final cut of the film, although we had to export it twice as the first version was both poor quality and dropping frames. Apart from this, everything went well.
