FILMING: Day Two – 22nd March 2010
The shoot today is for the final scene, so this means that the actors would need to really pull their skills out of the bag. This scene is the penultimate scene when Bettie finally triumphs over the evil Tristiana. All the cast are present on this shoot so it was vital we had everything organised well. We did complete a specific shot list so we know exactly how we want the cast and what order we will film in.
We decided to meet and hour earlier this time so we could have everything 100% ready for when the cast arrive. If im honest this was a scary thought as I knew todays shoot was going to be longer than the 1st shoot, which lasted 7 hours! But I was determined to stay focused and professional. The call time was changed as we knew they couldn’t all make it at the same time, so we moved it back to a time when they could all arrive at the same time as they where all needed together.
It was really handy having so much time as it allowed us to test the lighting, which was a pain due to the low-key natural lighting already in place. Also we where experimenting with a high-def 200FPS shot on the camera, which took some time to set up and test. The lighting needed to be good in order for it to be good detail and thankfully the tests showed good results.
Tara had written up the shot order after I had produced a shot list. This worked really well as it made the shoot less stressful and a lot more organised, however it left Tomos sat around waiting for a long time, which he insisted he didn’t mind, but we still felt back. The problem was he was needed in the background as he was meant to be in an “under a spell” type state.
One cool thing was that we had a scene where blood was involved. This meant we had to have a change of clothes for Jonathan as his character was due to get stabbed with a sliver sword by Tristiana. Tara and Gemma had read an article in a magazine written by a SFX professional who gave the instructions on how to make authentic looking hollywood blood. If im honest I thought the blood looked to thick, however it was still obvious what it was meant to be. Gemma head brought Anthony along, who created a bursting blood bag so we could shoot Jonathan’s character bleeding out after he had been stabbed to give it a bit more excitement. The one problem was that we had placed plastic underneath Jonathan’s shirt to stop the blood getting on him and staining, but we could clearly hear the rustling of the plastic, so the sound will need to be replaced on the final edit.
Over all today was a big success. 9 hours on set was the only drawback, however the fact that the cast and crew all got on well and we filmed exactly what we had set out to was great. The lighting still feels like a problem, but if im honest looking through the viewfinder of the camera I could see that it looked pretty good and gave it that dark seedy atmosphere that the film needs.
I am very pleased with todays shoot as I feel we got exactly what we wanted with hardly any complications and left the day with spirits high and feeling of looking forward to the 3rd day of shooting.
Jonathan gets into character.
