MAJOR PRODUCTION: FILMING DAY FOUR

Day four of filming took place on Tuesday 18th February. This was our school shoot day, taking place at The Victory Academy in Chatham. I was really looking forward to the days filming, because I had put in a lot of work to get the location of a school that we were all happy with. At the beginning of the day I had to meet my contact at the school, who I had been corresponding with, she took me around to run me through health and safety for the day etc before everyone arrived. Whilst the majority of the filming was taking place in the classroom or just outside of, I was clear with everyone that I wanted everyone to stick to our classroom as a base, and only leave when we were filming outside. This was so we caused the least attention and disruption to the school on the day.

I got all of the cast and crew to meet me and Laura in the car park, the school is very big so we had to make sure that everyone knew where to go, we took turns walking them in and getting visitor badges for everybody. Filming was underway, it was quite an intense day as we had 8 extras, as well as our full group of cast members all for the first time. As the filming happened, everything ran really smoothy. Myself and Laura made sure the room was covered in our own posters, with the school logo that we had created. As we were only there for about 5/6 hours, I had set up a table with drinks and snacks on it for the cast and crew to pick on throughout the filming. The one main issue that we were faced with throughout the day, was the classroom had one window covering the entirety of the left side of the room. As we filmed the last scene of the day, we had to change the setting slightly and Laura had to change the shots she had planned. This was so we avoided the window completely as we didn't want to show that it was getting darker outside, as we needed it to be 11am.

What did I learn from Day Four of filming? 
- This day of filming reinforced the ethos of how important it is to meet your cast before you film and build up that relationship with them. This was our one and only day with Mike Kelson who was playing Mr Shipman, whilst the day was fine and he got on well with everyone, I think it perhaps would have made it all the more comfortable if we met him beforehand, as this was out last day filming everyone had already been with each other for a while and our morale was high to complete
- I was really happy and felt really proud of the location I had gained access for us to film in (this school) the location was great for all of our scenes and it went really well
- Importance of having extras was emphasised to me. I tried my best to advertise and get as many extras on this day of shooting as possible, due to the fact we wanted it to look like an authentic school. However, it was a struggle to get the perfect amount of people, so whilst it wasn't ideal, we worked with what we had. Also, after speaking with this group we hope to use the post production period to emphasis this picture of a school using sound design.

Call Sheet for Day Four: