Transitions: Shoot day

Our shoot day was May 3rd/4th, the day started for the crew (Myself, Jemma and Gavin) with getting kit from London and doing final printings, corrections and blocking without actors.

I took continuity photos of the set before anyone arrived for when we had to reset. While I did that Gavin went to London to pick up a camera that he had hired and a Ronin-M Gimbal, he was able to set this up and practise with it before we started filming.

The call time was 5 O'clock, myself and Laura picked up both actors and brought them back to the house. We then introduced everyone to each other, I sat down with Sam and Gemma, I ran through the schedule for the day and any script changes that happened which they'd need to know about.

The shoot was going to be a night one from 5pm-1:30am, so I had to make sure the hotel would be ready for Sam and Gemma when they arrived.

5:00-7:00

The actors arrived, after going through the schedule with them we then all sat down and blocked through the script with them. Gavin lead a script read through while I made notes, after Gemma and Sam  got to grips with their characters we left them to rehearse while we blocked what we wanted in the title sequence.

7:00-8:00

While had lunch and waited for the lighting outside to get right it was an opportunity to tell Gemma and Sam what was going to happen, as well as allowing Gav to set up the camera.

8:10-8:30

The title sequence was shot in the back garden of the house, the idea behind it was that Jessica had broken into the house of some one she was spying on and taking pictures due to her job as a PI. This was done on the Gimbal in a series of short shots, that in the edit would be tied in with titles.

8:30-9:00

The outside scene with Malcolm walking to the flat was shot quickly and in few takes. It was done at this time so it was dark enough to work in.
Jemma did the sound and Gavin was able to get the shots with out any cars going through the background.
I made notes throughout filming on what takes where good, what scenes we had and was able to use the notes I had on my script from the test shoots to help set things up.

9:00-1:00 

Gav did all the Gimbal shots first, this saved time during set ups and de-rigs. He got a master shot and close ups. While he was then setting up the kit for the rest of the shoot, I looked through what we had and made notes on what needed redoing and also was able to note down what scenes we had done.

The opening shot was then done on a slider, the rest done on tripod (this was the 1st half of the interior scene and the hallway scene). The final shots got were handheld, these were pickups of closeups and whatever I had said previously needed redoing.

1:00-1:30

Set was de-rigged and actors were taken to their hotels for the night after we wrapped. All the footage was uploads and reviewed.