P R O D U C T I O N D I A R Y
DAY ONE
17/02/2024: Directing was a completely new experience for me, and I had a lot to learn. On the first day, I initially planned to cover 12 scenes in 7 hours, which I soon realised was way too much to accomplish. As a result, I had to move 5 scenes to the final day of shooting. Although this threw me off and made me extremely aware of time constraints, it was ultimately the best course of action.
Initially, I started with a storyboard and shot list, which turned out to be completely unrealistic. Following this, I worked to revise them, but this was almost impossible since we were undertaking most of our shooting days back-to-back. Consequently, I found myself revising setups while shooting with the help of my DP and AD. Despite the challenges, this experience was invaluable, as it taught me the importance of being precise with scheduling.
DAY TWO
18/02/2024: The second day was undoubtedly the most challenging to coordinate. We had the entire cast show up, and we had to move between three distinct locations: the house (base), the quay, and the pub. In light of the situation, we still managed to capture everything we needed at the house and capture some stunning shots by the quay. However, we fell behind by approximately an hour, which forced us to expedite our coverage at the pub. We eventually finished all the necessary shots (slightly over time) and even captured a group photo to celebrate!
DAY THREE
19/02/24: This day was notably the smoothest of all days, as we operated in just one place: Otto’s bedroom. We were filming the first half of the montage sequence, which featured a variety of shots of the protagonist swiftly executing the different stages of his meticulously designed plan. This required careful planning and coordination from the team to ensure everything would align perfectly in the edit.
Despite the lack of space, we managed to complete the day’s work, running over once again but ending on a high note for the final day.
DAY FOUR
21/02/2024: The break on the 20th provided me with an opportunity to revise the shooting schedule, including the shots and their order. This ensured that the cast and crew were better prepared for the end of the shoot.
The final day comprised 8 scenes in total; however, this job became more difficult seeing as we had to pick up those scenes that we'd missed on the initial day. This meant we had to recreate the original layout, continuity, and lighting of Otto’s room. In addition to the chaos, we ended the day with the first scene in the film, and the most technically challenging one at that. Looking back, I would have preferred to carry out this scene at a different time in the shoot, as ending with such challenging choreography meant it was not in the best interests of the cast and crew, but we didn’t have much choice. Continuing the trend set by the very first day, we began to run over again, but the team were resilient, and before we knew it, we had finished!