The Interview: Shooting Weekend

Just spent the last week watching back the footage from last weekend's shoot and were very pleased with it! Although the weekend brought some ups and down's we managed to overcome them and produce what I think will be a really good short.
The weekend started of suprisingly relaxed, with the bulk of the filming on the Sunday. We took some stills with our main actor Ed on the Friday up on the University campus and then Saturday we took a few more pictures in Victoria Park. I'm glad we had a filming permit because we did get some funny looks from people walking past!


Saturday afternoon was spent over at Josh's house, where we ran rehearsals for our three actors. I'm glad we allocated specific rehearsal time because it meant they were ready and knew what they were doing come Sunday when we filmed. It also gave the actors a chance to meet each other. As Co-producer with Myles, we went out and bought some snacks to keep the actors content, which ended up being quite a feast!

Sunday was spent in Bristol at Brideswell Arts Centre (old police station). I was slightly worried on the way there because I couldn't get hold of the person who was supposed to be letting us into the location. However, all was ok on arrival and he was very hospitable, allowing us to stay as long as we wanted! This was a life saver because mid to late afternoon, we had a problem with the camera, which meant we had to stay later than planned! As we were shooting on a Canon 7D, it meant the footage was being stored on to a memory card rather than a tape. We had to upload the footage frequently to our laptop to make more space to continue filming. However, the laptop couldn't take the data... so Gus and Ciaran went searching around Bristol for a good two hours trying to find a big memory card. Unfortunately they had no luck and we only had two options. To shoot another day, which wasn't an ideal choice or to somehow get Ciaran's laptop over to the location, which we knew would work. Luckily our kind friend brought it round for us, which meant we could continue the shoot later than planned. We did have to drop a couple of shots which we had on the shot list but we made sure we got the most important ones and we still have plenty of choice.

Myles and Gus quite freqently informed me that the quality on the 7D was amazing, but I still was suprised at just how nice it actually looks! I'm very pleased we decided to use this over the Z1, I think it has given a professional look to our film. I hope to make more films with Ciaran and use his 7D again!

All in all it was a great weekend of filming and I felt I learned a lot. Everyone took to their roles well and I think the actors enjoyed working with us too. They seemed impressed with the location and are eager to see the film when it's finished.

I will keep you updated with how it's going once the edit is underway!