Production Notes

Pre-production is always complicated, and this time, the level of planning felt much more aligned with my experience of the Directions unit in our first year. When creating a scripted piece of work, there are many different things to consider that have not been necessary with my more recent work. For instance; the creation of a script, working with an actor, the planning and creation of props, storyboarding and location planning are all things that were not so prominent during both the TV News and Documentary units, so getting back into the swing of working to an emphasised level of detail was difficult.

I wanted to be sure that by the time it came to film, I felt as though I'd adequately prepared enough production paperwork to produce a successful shoot. Of course, difficulties always arise, and there's always some way in which you are unprepared, which arises usually in entirely unexpected ways that you simply can't prepare for! (More on that in my evaluation)  I was excited to create this project though and found that this time around during the planning processes, this actually helped me to gain some momentum on the run-up to filming, rather than feeling tedious. This was somewhat of a revelation, as the paperwork is often where I struggle to find enthusiasm. I worked with the 'paperwork', rather than against it, and found that in fact, there were elements of the planning stages that I really enjoyed.

One of the things that I enjoyed most, was watching the seed of the idea be cultivated with every new piece of planning I did. With each step of the planning; an idea, a location, a cast member, a mood board, came more anticipation of creating the idea, and throughout the planning stages, I became more excited at what I might be able to hold the finished product into.

After establishing this to be a project in the horror genre, I knew that the location had to be right. I had visited one of my peers' houses during the previous unit and thought that it had the potential to work for my project. I was fortunate that they agreed for me to film there, and I began to plan my story as if it were taking place in this space.

The front of the house. The right-hand side is occupied by Conor, and the left by Baby.

The Kitchen space. The literal and metaphoric 'middle-ground' between the two.

This house, which was glass-fronted, was perfect for the purpose of this production. In a stroke of good fortune, I was also able to cast inside the house- with both the main performer Richard being a willing participant, MA screen acting student and husband of my peer, and their daughter Zelda, who would appear as 'Baby' in the film. This hugely benefited me as it curtailed the stress of finding locations and actors, which is usually very time-consuming. I had visited their home once previously on a separate occasion, so had some idea of the layout. However, I asked to be sent images so that I could adequately prepare for the shoot in advance. Having an idea of the geography of the space informed me how I might block different scenes and how I myself might move the camera around them. 

In these shots, there's a 'crossing of the line'. Conor now occupies the left, the Baby on the right.

The layout of the house was perfect in that the baby could reside on one clearly defined side of the house, and my protagonist Conor, on the other. This created a naturally opposing environment for the two of them and something that would continue in other aspects of the film.

With the location stills as a reference, I tried to work on creating a shot list and storyboard to guide the narrative. One issue that arose was that prior to filming, I hadn't actually completely finished my story, though, with each tutorial I had, I felt more confident about where the story was going and how to get there. These tutorials proved invaluable during the pre and post-production stages and helped me keep the focus on what needed doing. As I began to develop more ideas for the story, shots would come to mind that would then be added to the list as it slowly began to expand. I was fortunate that after speaking to the Actor, he was also on-board with an experimental approach and seeing what worked best at the time, so that should we want to explore ideas away from the shot list, we were both happy to do so.

An extract from my shot list.

You can view the full shot list here.

I also began storyboarding, but unfortunately lost my apple pencil during this development stage. Having a storyboard is a much better tool for me to use as a reference during filming, as it's a direct interpretation as close to my mind's eye as possible, so this really did create an additional layer of difficulty for me during shooting, as referring back to my shot list wasn't always easy for me to interpret what I was envisioning at the time. Shots that had been planned were not always possible, or, of course, appeared differently when looking through the lens of a camera than how you imagined them to, so deviations from the shot-list often become inevitable in favour of a better, or more achievable alternative. That being said, I tried as best possible to stick to some of the more prominent ideas I'd had in mind and adapt them in a way that worked to appease my original idea as well as working within the the limitations of the camera.

In addition to the storyboard and shot list, (with accompanying story prompts) I also created a supplementary, short Character profile for the Actor to read to try and understand the headspace of the Character he was to play. I wrote this in a way that felt naturalistic, like the thought process of how the Character might write it if they were able to fully reflect on their own existence.

It was also important ahead of time that I was aware of what equipment I would be using during the shoot. I had already used Blackmagic for our TV News unit and loved the results that it gave me. Having the ability to easily change settings on the touch-screen was time-efficient and saved the difficulty of getting to grips with a new camera. There was a stabiliser that could be used with it, and I knew from planning that I would like a sense of movement in a lot of the shots, rather than lots of stationary work (No tripods, sorry Kat) and that this was achievable using the stabiliser. There were drawbacks to using this camera though, as when it was on the stabiliser, there was no ability to focus. This was something that I was willing to accept as a characteristic rather than a drawback, and still considered the Blackmagic to be my best available option.

Some of the original Storyboard before I started working digitally.

Risk assessing was important as the shoot involved a baby and I would require the performer to be in his underwear during filming. I, fortunately, had met my Actor prior to filming, so there was already an existing rapport so when I asked whether he was comfortable with doing this, he was more than happy to oblige. When filming scenes with the baby, both parents (As they were the lead actor and crew) were always on hand to fulfil the baby's needs, which was advantageous as the safeguarding of the baby was paramount during the production. The risk assessment can be viewed here.

With all of this information under my belt, I was in a good position when I began to start production. It was good to be able to prove to myself that I was able to do all of these things and manage my time appropriately and effectively to get the job done. When it came to creating the project, it was also beneficial to be able to collaborate with others on set who understood the creative vision and outcome of the project and were willing to help achieve it.