Shooting Day 2

Road works, not there when we did the recce, so something we had to deal with.

Again shooting day 2 started with us meeting the two new actors so they knew us. Since there was fighting in this it was going to be quite physical for the actors so one of them (a trained martial arts instructor) took them off to do some warm ups. This gave me a good chance to set a white balance and exposure on the main camera I'd be using, one of the Canon's, since I was more used to it. Again since we were shooting outside in the day the weather changed a lot, from sunny to drizzling at one point, so again the exposure maybe would have needing changed a bit in hindsight but I thought it'd be better to stick to a set one rather than keep messing around with it and change it every shot. I think this was the right thing to do. Having the exposure working and looking good was key in my eyes. 

Using the shoulder rig for free movement and relative stability

The biggest problem by far on the day was batteries in the cameras. I started off using one Canon until both batteries had gone, so I moved onto the next Canon, as the batteries for the first one charged, then once that died so we moved to the Nikon but then that died. It was a bit of a kerfuffel and was probably the only thing we didn't really plan for. 

The other problem this presented was that all the cameras had slightly different setting, I obviously set a white balance with each camera I got but as I mentioned the weather kept changing so they would have all been a bit different, I set the same exposure in them all too but again there is a chance that may have differed slightly meaning a bit of colour correction may be needed. 

Also in the period when we used the Nikon the Canon 50mm (which again we were using for all the close ups after seeing how well it worked day 1) we were using obviously didn't fit due to the different models so we couldn't use that lens for the close ups and had to reschedule those shots for the end of the day, this all became a bit of a rush at the end as we were beginning to lose light a bit. In this rush I think a couple of things on the cameras would I've been left to automatic settings, which isn't ideal either, I'd rather have set all the different bits to get it right, but in the interest of time it was more important to get all the shots. If it looked too bad a re-shoot was always possible. 

Team brief before the main shooting began

Me and Conor running through
the storyboards.

Also I wasn't completely clued in on how to use all the different cameras I had fine research that night since I found out I'd be using new cameras, and it was easy enough getting to grips with them quickly on the day but it would have been helpful to have a proper experiment with them like I did the 60D. 

Here you can see us setting up a shot. Here we're using the 50mm for a good close-up.

One if the shames of this was that I would have liked to try out the 85mm in a bigger location so I could have utilised it's positives more. As I mentioned it was fairly redundant in the indoor shoot, but would've been good outside, a shame, but not a really important negative. 

Tom helping me set-up one of the dolly shots

Similar to day 1 I had a bit of a battle getting focus, since again we were shooting moving fights so  it was sometimes a choice of who was going to be more clearly in focus than the other. But this wasn't drastic and maybe not even noticeable, it certainly looked ok when we went over the rushes after the shooting finished.

We used the dolly quite a bit, but in moderation because a lot of the fighting stuff was handheld again. The fighting being hand held and most other things being tripoded or dollied made a nice link actually, because the fight is a fantasy sequence and is mainly handheld and in the flat it's handheld and she's drawing- also in her fantasy world. This gives a vague, tenuous visual link that when the camera is obviously quite handheld it represents she is in a fantasy world that is free flowing and not fixed, however everything else is still and regimented. This is a deeper level to the film that is quite good I think.

Checking the white balance and exposure so it looks good.

Dolly set-up for the opening shot

Doing a practice run of the opening shot.

I used the hill to push the dolly more
for a smoother glide.

Contrary to this I did like the dolly shots of the fighting a lot, and wish we'd done more since they were smooth, and had the kind of look I imagined. We couldn't have done the whole fight dollied though because it would have just been horizontal movements that would have got monotonous quickly. Something else I like about the dolly shots though is how they were from the side they were, something that was in my location plan. The garages were in the background and they had a lot of lines on them which to me at least brought up connotations if a fight in a boxing ring or a prison or something similar, the lines were visually extremely pleasing I though.

Practicing the fight scene to avoid any accidents

We still utilised that in the handheld shots though, there was a very nice sense of depth to the image with the lines of the roof going all the way down the location drawing the eye through the frame. I would like to have shot the whole thing with that in the background to see if it worked, but instead we opted to move around the fight more. This was partially to try and get more of a whole view and sense of the situation, but in a more practical way it was important to get behind certain people at certain points so it looked like they had been hit and you can believe there was impact. 

Since the handheld shots with the shoulder rig were a lot more kinetic than the shoulder rig shots in the flat, it got across more of a feeling of energy but whilst still having a professional smoothness to it so viewers don't get motion sick looking at it.

Seb getting sound levels while everyone checks the fight to see how it looks.

I tried briefly to jolt the camera similar to the techniques I saw when I watched and analysed The Raid when punches would hit so it feels more immersive and you feel the impact of a hit visually, but I didn't stick to this as after a few attempts it wasn't clear enough and instead looked a bit like I'd just tripped or stumbled while filming. 

Conor and Seb running over ideas for the next shot.

Something we kept the idea from the flat from was the idea of subtle moments of comedy. Here we utilised this by having one shot in the background the victim of the mugging takes a selfie while the fight is happening, just a silly little moment to give the film extra layers. Since it happens in the background it's subtle enough to make people smirk but not ruin the tone if the fight, it might not even be noticed on first viewing. 

Break while the next part of the fight is explained

The other comedy moment fits into the fantasy idea, when the sword just appears out of the muggers back. It's unexpected because nothing in the story has led to make you expect that and the way it seems to come up by its self mirrors a very video game-y feel. 

Practising the reaction to the punches, I angled myself behind Lucy to make it look like the punches connected

Conor made the decision nearing the end if the day to not do the second fantasy sequence where Lucy gets stabbed, due to time restraints, and I think this was a very good call. By scrapping that it meant we could fairly comfortably get everything and if when we do the rough edit we desperately need that it wouldn't take too long to re-shoot. Also in hindsight I think with both fantasy sequences it would have been hard to make the film 5 mins, I think we would have overrun and had to cut things out anyway. 

Meeting between me Conor and Shane (the mugee) about the next shot

Yet another problem we faced was that we were shooting at some garages that were in use and half way through the shooting day someone came to work on their car that they stored there. This was something that was obviously not foreseen but ultimately something we couldn't really do anything about. I tried to change the shots a bit to try to not show him in the background but sometimes it was impossible without having to re-establish where Lucy started etc, which would have been a waste of time and not worth the hassle. Since it was public land we just had to live with people walking through every now and then and people accessing garages. I don't think it detracted from the story too much. 

Setting up a tripod over the shoulder shot, with 50mm

The whole crew worked well on the day and we all were talking to each other and making decisions as a group and supporting one another well. One of the actors Conor knows complimented us as a team to him too, which was nice to know we seemed professional. Conor himself was a very good director and took care of all the actors while still being very involved in the technical side, he balanced it all extremely well. Seb too as sound recordist was very
Despite not having any direct involvement with the production that day Sarah, Hannah and Tom were also extremely useful whether it was talking to the actors and helping explain things, giving input on shots/ideas or assisting those who were directly involved. Tom in particular was good as my camera assistant when I needed him.

The selfie from the subtle background selfie joke

At the end of the day we went back to the flat and got a few more insert shots of games and dvds etc to use to emphasise how she likes to detach from reality through those things. Then we compiled all the footage for Tom one folder and the audio in another for Hannah's sound editing.