Reflections From Filming - 19th January 2010

I was nervous before filming began because I didn't know what to expect. I was thinking that it could go horribly wrong or it could go brilliantly and we'd all walk away with great big smiles on our faces. What was the outcome? I don't know...

I met with the cast members outside the hall at the end of the day, just after Matt had given them a copy of the script to use whilst filming. With the rest of the group, we headed to our filming location, which was over in the D block. Each of the cast members were given their costumes to get changed into and Matt began to set up filming for the title sequence in another room.

I went through a cast read through with the cast. By the time that had finished, Matt had finished shooting the title sequence and then began setting up the camera in our room. From there on, it was like a disaster. The storyboard was not stuck to and most of the camera angles were zoomed in.

I often found there was a lack of communication between the crew members. The cast worked brilliantly together. They were amazing. I felt I was often dragged into the role of director as no one seemed to know what was going on. At times, it seemed as if the cast members were the only ones who had actually read the script. I was often asked to suggest camera angles and whenever I told Tim to film from a certain angle, he complained that we had no time and just carried on filming.

I felt the storyboard was perfectly fine to read and as some of the cast members take media as part of their a levels, they came to me and said that the camera angles in which everything was being filmed from were too static and that everything was filmed from the outside and not enough closeups were used. After filming took place, we said to go and film more closeups. What I saw was the cast members being filmed and also us being filmed round the corner, which had nothing to do with the story....

I think serious thoughts need to be done whilst filming episode 2 or this project will fall to pieces. I don't want that to happen as so much hard work has been put into it.

Where's the cast photos?