MAJOR PRODUCTION; ROUGH CUT EDIT

As the producer and writer, I was unsure of my place during the editing stage. Katie, as editor, would be using her research to fit the shots together in the best way possible, whilst Laura would be casting her creative eye over the film ensuring it is her vision.

I decided that for the edits I would try to just make sure the film was still authentic to our original message and research, I wanted to ensure that the tone would still be right. For the rough cut, I tried to focus on just writing down basic notes that I had. Simple aspects such as audio being out, because at this point it was more about getting the footage right before considering other detailed aspects such as music etc;

I thought it would help me to research aspects of producer works in editing. Whilst it was good I could get myself involved in making notes for each edit, I wanted to try and add more value to my role during the editing process. I found it quite difficult to source interesting guides and pieces of work that I could use to research, until I came across the title of - 'Post Production Producer'. 

Post Production Producers are responsible for the post production process, during which they need to maintain the authentic process of information and good methods of communication between the producer, director and editor. The post production period can be one of the most time consuming part of the production, so it can be very difficult and challenging. The post production producer will have to make sure everyone is communicating successfully to aid the project. Skills needed for this role

- Empathy

- Ability to make tough decisions under pressure

- Working to deadlines 

- Time keeping

- Motivation to work long hours

The post production producer can start work anytime on a production, dependent on the needs of the film. For example, they may start work during the pre-production because they are needed to liaise with certain third party companies regarding preliminary costs. During the post production, they keep the producer informed of the timeline, noting how they are keeping to the schedule as well as if they keeping to the budget. 

To further my research on this role, I tried to find a job description of this role, something that would outline the skills required and jobs involved: 

Whilst I am the overall producer and writer, I can take the skills from this role of Post Production Producer to add to my role. In lieu of this research, I thought I would set myself two objectives that would aid me in the editing process and get myself involved more, these will be: 

1) Set up a time every few weeks where the group and I can watch the edit together to discuss certain points, this will help with communication between all of us

2) As the writer, make notes and perhaps use the script, to make sure the film is authentically put together in a way that portrays the overall research and messages decided upon in the pre-production period. 

MAJOR PRODUCTION; RESHOOT DAY

As previously mentioned, we had to complete a reshoot day to correct some errors and scenes that we were not happy with. Our reshoot day took place on Friday March 15th, we had the following scenes to re-film:
- Scene 14
- Scene 17
- Scene 21
- Scene 22
- Scene 23
- Scene 24
- Scene 28

We had to re-film at 2 different locations, so as normal I planned the timings and sent the cast and crew the call sheets and schedule. Schedule for reshoot day:

The first set of scenes that we did, taking place in the house in Allhallows. These were quite easy as we didn't need to record sound (as we already had the original sound from the first shoot day), and it was all outside in daylight, so this worked really well. The next scene we needed to re-film  was the death scene. We needed to get the timing better of the car coming down the road and Nova stepping off of the pathway and we also needed to catch a more emotional reaction from Marlo. After a few attempts, we managed to catch this perfectly. The last set of scenes that we needed to film, was the memorial sequences. This was where we found our most difficultly, as we lose the light very quickly and it was difficult to light a pitch black area with LED lights. 

Overall, I am really happy that we re-filmed these scenes. I was happy with how the new ones came out and I am now confident that they match the calibre of the other scenes that we have filmed.  

MAJOR PRODUCTION; WRITERS PERSPECTIVE 3

In hindsight to the filming, when considering the reshoots, there was a few things as a writer that I needed to consider. The first was a new ending, we all felt that the ending was very flat and not as cinematic as the rest of the film, so we needed a new ending. At first I considered the idea that we could end on Marlo and Nova saying goodbye at the park, but I felt that the audience really should see Marlos bedroom. For me, Marlo's messy bedroom at the start of the film is a symbol of his life, it is representative of how Marlo's life has been completely messed up and turned upside down. At the end, the idea of seeing his now clean, tidy and empty room demonstrates the change Marlo has had in his life. He has accepted his life now and made a positive change to move forward. With this in mind, the new idea for the end to is keep it simple, have the clean room, followed by Marlo loading his stuff in to Julie's car (ready to move out) and have him and Julie drive away. Whilst I think this is a very generic ending, it feels right for the story that we are trying to tell, it shows the story come full circle as Marlo ventures off to his new life.

New Last Scene:

Secondly, Simon felt that we needed to see Julie one more time, demonstrating that she knows he is missing and is looking for him. I have therefore added a new scene before Marlo gets to the memorial. The scene entails Julie in her car trying to call Marlo and leaving his a voice mail. This inexplicably portrays the idea that Julie is trying to find Marlo and I think creates an intensity around her closing in on him, almost like a clock running out before she reaches him and he has to admit to his issues.

New Julie Scene: 

These scene additions are something I'm really happy with, the ending specifically is something I think helps to round the film off in a more round way. It is a lot more cinematic for us to have the car drive away outside into the landscape, than end on a line of dialogue in Marlo's bedroom. With these new additions, I also needed to make sure the script was up to date with the changes that we were making on the day. This involved Mr Shipman's dialogue, as well as the 2 scenes that we ended up improvising on the day. For the scenes that we had improvised, I have wrote a description in the script describing what they would have been talking about in the script. For example this is the scene that Marlo brings a bottle of vodka to Nova.

Finally, since filming, there are two parts of the script that we have decided to scrap completely. The first is the idea of having the figure speak to Marlo by the memorial. Once we had filmed this part it didn't look exactly how we thought it would, it came across as slightly cheesy and gimmicky. Also, it didn't have a massive impact upon, or bring anything to, the story. Secondly, we decided to scrap the idea of the pocket watch. For me, the pocket watch was a symbol of Marlo's father, because he died when Marlo was young, Marlo has always struggled with loss and death and has always felt like something is missing. Nova's death brings back and emphasis these feelings upon loss and struggling with death, the pocket watch was meant to be a reoccurring symbol of this struggle before it is revelled in one of the final scenes how Julie and her husbands last conversation is very similar to that of Nova and Marlo's. However, it didn't seem to come across like this in the film, it seemed very random and almost like an unanswered question that the audience was had. As we have such a definitive end to our story, it doesn't really make sense to leave anything unexplained and unknown in this way, so as a group we have decided we will scrap the idea of the pocket watch.

MAJOR PRODUCTION: REVIEWING FOOTAGE

2 days after we completed filming, we had a footage review. Put simply, all three of us sat and sifted through every clip we had filmed, matching them up to the specific scene and making sure that they worked. As a group we had to make sure we were happy with each clip, considering factors such as


- Lighting
-Acting/Performance
- Dialogue
- Framing
- Sound

As we were watching through, I was really happy with the quality of the camerawork that we had. I was quite taken aback at how clear and concise all of shots looked. On some of the shoot days, especially the ones that we did outside, we were slightly worried about how the lighting of the sky was affecting the shot. Obviously the clips always look different when viewing during an edit in comparison to the slight graininess of the viewfinder and I was really happy with how the majority looked. As we went through it because obvious that there was a few issues some a small amount of the scenes we had filmed, this was as follows:

Scene 14 - The coverage wasn't enough at the start of the scene, didn't have enough shots to show Marlo getting from one side of the garden to the other.
Scene 22/24 - These 2 scenes were filmed during the night, and whilst we had some lighting, they still appeared very dark, we and worked hard to prepare a memorial for this scene and personally I didn't think we saw the memorial clear enough to do it justice for the scene in the script.
Scene 23 - The reaction shots of Marlo were not working adequately enough, as the character had just witnessed his girlfriend being hit by a car we needed more of an emotional reaction perhaps with some more coverage.

These were the scenes that we knew we needed to re-film. As we had over 25 scenes to film I was quite happy with the outcome of all of this. I had another look over the budget and worked out that we had roughly £130 left. This meant that we were able to get our actors down for one more day and re-film! After liaising with all of the actors I worked out that we would be able to re-film on 15th March. This was the perfect time because it gives us around 2-3 weeks to make all of the necessary arrangements, it gives Laura a chance to rejig the scenes and make them work before the reshoot day and it is still in plenty of time for all of our edit deadlines.

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:

MAJOR PRODUCTION; WRITERS PERSPECTIVE 2

Now that the filming is complete on Unspoken, I thought I would do my next writers perspective based upon the filming days. At first, it was really strange to see my work come to life and have so many people work on it to bring it all together. Over the filming days I was on hand to help with understandings of certain lines.

For example, the dialogue above, our actress portraying Nova asked us whether or not this line was meant in a sarcastic or serious way, I was able to confirm this so that the scene had the correct tone that it needed.

Also on the shoot days, I was on hand to confirm and tweak some lines. For example, our actor Mike who portrayed Mr Shipman, wanted to change some of the lines to feel more natural, as well as another line because it didn't make sense. Example:

During the filming process, I also had to change the location of Scene 16 (originally taking place in Marlo's bedroom). As we were filming I thought that because of Scene 15 taking place in the garden, it seemed strange to have Scene 16 take place upstairs due to day lighting, Scene 16 takes place immediately after 15, so it felt more natural for Marlo to go into his kitchen rather than his bedroom. Other changes include improvisations, I had the idea of filming to film Scene 19 in a vlog style, with the characters filming themselves on a phone. I thought this was a fun and different way of showing these characters in a fun and happy environment. This was an unscripted part that me and Laura briefed the cast on, allowing them to simply have fun together on the camera. 

I liked having the input from the cast because it showed that they cared about the project, i know that not everything I write will stay or make sense, sometimes I find looking at the same dialogue for a while as the writer it becomes difficult to come up with new and different alternate lines. This was beneficial for me. I was really happy with how the filming went from a writing perspective. Everything that I felt was important in the script managed to translate on camera, certain actions that I wrote such as the way Nova stood in contrast to Marlo (which was important due to Nova's character) were included throughout and I felt as though everyone really understood the meaning of the script. 

MAJOR PRODUCTION: FILMING DAY THREE

The third day of filming was on 15/02/2019, it was our must complex day so far as we were filming in 2 different locations. As the producer I knew that I needed to be prepared for the day logistically. I had arranged for the cast members to meet Laura at her house, to come with her to the locations so that they didn't have to worry about driving to and from different locations. The filming was first taking place in Binney Road in Allhallows, this was to film the following scenes

- Scene 14: Marlo and Nova garden scene
- Scene 17: Marlo and Nova kitchen scene, following out into the road to have conversation.

These were very simple and easy scenes for us to complete, I had schedule around 2.5 hours at this location to complete these scenes. Darcy (Nova) and Liam (Marlo) work well together as do our crew, this was our 3rd day of shooting therefore I was confident we would be able to complete these scenes to a great standard in the time allotted. We did however, have 2 unsolvable issues whilst filming. Scene 14 takes place at the side of the house, this meant that we had to compete with outside noise from the neighbours, this held us back slightly as all we could do was wait and film in the time that the noise went silent. As we moved onto Scene 17, we had some more noise issues. We had a few more shots left to complete the scene on the side of the road, however the issue we encountered was that it was bin day, this meant a bin truck was going up and down the road, stalling our filming for about 20 minutes. Luckily, this didn't delay us too much in getting on with the rest of the day, it was important that we waited the time so that we could get the shots Laura wanted without the issue of the noise. It was at this point of the day that we needed to travel to the next location for filming.

Our next location was on York Road in Maidstone, this is the location for the following scenes.
Scene 22/24 - Marlo standing over Novas memorial, emotional before his mum (Julie) turns up to console and take him home.
Scene 23 - Known as our flashback scene, this is the death of Nova.

We arrived at this location in our two different cars, on the way I had picked up lunch for everybody. We had just meal deals with sandwiches etc, as everyone could pick exactly what they wanted. Everyone was happy with this. Overall, the main issue that we had with this day was lighting. Scenes 22/24 take place in the night, so we knew we would have had to lit the scene. We had to play around with car and phone lights (as well as LEDs) to make it look as lit as could. This will depend upon the edit in terms of how this scene looks.

What did I learn on Filming Day Three?
A lot of these filming days are teaching me a lot about scheduling and timing constraints, this is the first project where I have been solely in charge of the timings and I have had to schedule each scene with allotted filming times. Thinking about day three, it would have perhaps benefits for us to split the locations into two different days. At the start, it made sense to have the both locations on the same day, they both only required half a day each so it made sense to do it all in one. However in hindsight I think we would have benefited from having them on 2 different days, yes the days would have been shorter but we would have been able to focus more on the locations and have more time to prepare for things such as sound issues and lighting.


Call sheets for Day Three: