Filming: Day 1

I filmed on the 11th of January, starting at around 6 o clock. Along with my actors I had two other people to help with carrying the equipment and script. As I was filming later than I originally planned because of trouble with travel, I had much less time to film and the lighting wasn’t good enough for some of the outside shots. For instance, shot one (the establishing shot) could not be filmed as the location, even with the use of torches, wasn’t visible on camera. This is the same for a few other shots. Because of this, I will be filming again in the day to get these final shots.

When in the tunnels, I had a few problems. Occasionally, something would get in the way such as misunderstanding some areas when writing the script. For example, in shot 24 when the ghost in dragging someone through the hole, I realised that this hole in the wall was too long to be able to reach through so I filmed one shot with her grabbing him with only the arms visible on her side and then another shot with him pretending to be dragged into the hole. This seemed to look believable but may face trouble when editing this shot.

When inside the tunnels, I had little trouble with lighting. I had the two people who weren’t acting helping me out with the lighting. Although some of the torches have more of a spotlight than over all lighting, this sometimes was an advantage when filming the ghost as it gave a more selective lighting. For instance, in shot 41, I only wanted to the torch to light her up. This ended up looking a lot scarier in my opinion.

Having so many people on the set was a bit of a hassle. Not only was it a bit distracting but in some shots someone might not have realised it was recording and talked over it or someone would start laughing through the filming. It was also difficult constantly making sure no one was visible on the shot they weren’t meant to be in. However, having the two extra people proved a great help in lighting and helping out organising what shot is next. There was little issues with people passing while filming which I was not expecting in such an isolated spot. Although, they didn’t stay for long, the filming had to be delayed as they kept making noises in the background.

Other than lighting, sound was another big issue that I am still trying to figure out how to overcome. On the night, I was planning to have the dialogue over the top of the shots and the recordings done on that same night, however, time and volume got in the way of this. I am now going to record these separately and, while editing, put them into the shots. Most of the dialogue was fine but it was in the areas where the camera was far away from the actors when it started being a problem.

As we started much later than I planned, this made me rush through a lot of the shots meaning that I only had one shot of each. I would have liked to have more of an option for each shot so it would be easier editing it however, most of the shots looked well done expect a few that were unnecessarily cut short which I will reshoot on my next filming session.

Overall, the first filming day wasn’t as successful as I would have hoped; however, I have a lot more time to film to get all the shots I need and to record all the dialogue that wasn’t very audible on the camera. I will make sure next time that I plan time better in order for the lighting to be right and will organise more clearly which order I will do it in to make it a quicker and easier process.