The Incident: Working Log/Diary

Tuesday 15th March

Today was the day that we finally started work on the filming I was directing, although It was written by Matty Dickens I was directing and there for treated the film like it was my own. Tonight we had a lot of work to do and a lot of scenes to get, I was both mentally and physically drained by the end of the evening. Our first shoot of the film and by far the most difficult; The party scene. The crew was Myself as Director, Matty Dickens as Camera Operator, Jess Bramfitt as Sound Operator, Danniella Cooper as Production manager and Harvey Lines as my Assistant Director. 

In the film Nathan takes his less popular friend Joe to his first ever party, Joe drinks to much and ends up fighting his best friend before and accident occurs in which Nathan is implied to have been killed.

This meant we were tasked with recreating a realistic looking party scene firstly to do this we needed lots of people to be at this 'fake party' so I asked for as many extras as possible, I asked the acting students that weren't already staring in the film, friends and friends of friends. Thankfully lots of people showed up. With the 6 Actors in the film and the 20 odd extras directing everyone was going to be very challenging. Secondly we needed props to help create a party atmosphere, this meant we needed; beer, cider, vodka, wine any bottles we could get really to help the audiences see that alcohol was present at the party as the concept of under-age drinking is important in the films message. Obviously we couldn't have any branding on the bottles so I spent all morning before the shoot peeling and scrapping away at different bottles, that I had been saving, in order to remove the branding.

The main 6 members of the cast and the crew met at base for 5pm, I had booked a mini bus half past meaning that we would arrive at Mattys house where filming of the party scene was taking place around 6pm. However because I wasn't stressed enough the taxi decided to be around 30 minutes late setting us back from the get go! (THANKS ROYAL CABS.) After this we arrived at Mattys house and began to set up, the three make up girls began work on applying the base make up for the 6 main actors while I briefed the extras who I informed to show up at 6 so they weren't just waiting around whilst things like make up were getting done. However that was the case due to us arriving on set later than planned. As well as this one of the actors was late setting us back even more but after he had make up done we could start. Whilst make up was getting done I played music to try and get the party extras into the party vibe, I tried to get them to dance but I felt like some of them didn't want to. At around half 6 (I think, its all one big stressful blur to be right now) we were ready to start filming.

The first shots were outside as the two main characters walk to the party and because of our delays it was darker than I would have liked it to be, obviously it needed to be dark as no one has a party mid day but it had gotten to dark and the lighting became and issue. As well as this the weather decided it would try and stop us by spitting just a little bit but we used and umbrella to protect the camera and powered through.

Next the hard part began, the party scenes. I had to direct our 6 actors and the 20 plus extras. I found this challenging but rewarding. The most difficult part was creating the right atmosphere, obviously music couldn't be played and must be applied in post so I had to get the extras to pretend like music was playing not all of them seemed up for dancing however. Also we had to make sure that the extras were talking so that the party had some background noise, looking back i feel like i should have just had everyone who didn't have lines silent and applied background chatter in post but I will not know until I come to edit. We had a lot to do and became very tight for time running over due to our delays. I feel like I gave direction to the actors well on how I wanted them to deliver their lines and act, I hope I did a good job. Overall it was very stressful but I think I enjoyed it.

Toward the end of the night the camera was dying and it was getting late, we had to end the shoot before we could do the scenes with the special effects such as blood and sugar glass. As the scenes with the fake blood and sugar glass were only close ups of a single character (Nathan) it wasn't to much of an issue as we could do it in pick up week and not have to call any of the extras back so it would just be the crew, make up girls and Reece (Nathan.) Despite not getting these shots we got loads of footage, more than enough I should hope. I felt like directing tonight was the Hardest thing I've done on the course so far, I hope its worth it when it comes to the quality of the film.

I think this image perfectly describes the word stress

Wednesday 16th March

Today was a much easier and much more laid back day, we would be getting the scenes of Joe alone in his room crying meaning that we just needed the crew and Dylan who was playing Joe. We met at college and got a mini bus back to my house where we could shoot the scenes of Joe crying on his bed. It was a straight forward shoot and we were done quickly. Our production manager couldn't make it to the shoot that day so it was just the four of us and Dylan. As we weren't tight for time this aloud me and Matty to experiment with the lighting!

Friday 18th March

Today was the last day of shooting for the Incident (other than pick ups.) Today we filmed the scenes of Joe and Nathan at college, our shoot was delayed as we were also shooting for Jess's film on the morning which ran over slightly and we were using some of the same cast. As well as this we were tight for time as the acting students had a mandatory class just an hour after we started filming, which they never told me about when I asked them if they were free for the shooting times. So that was a nice surprise. Despite this we still got everything done, as we didn't have that much to shoot. The footage looked nice too, one issue we did have though was continuity as we were filming in a car park and cars kept driving into shot, this meant it took a while to get the right shot without a car ruining it but we got there in the end.

26th March

Today we did the pick ups for The Incident, these were the shots from the first shoot day that we couldn't get. The team couldn't make it so me and Matty (DOP) did it our self's, all we needed was Reece and the make up girls as we would be getting close up shots of Nathan after he had fallen on the glass. The fake blood and the sugar glass looked great, and the shots were fantastic, it took awhile for the make up girls to get the glass stuck in his neck right but once we did that we finished quickly. After this we were done, our film was finished. That's a Wrap!