97% Match 2015 PERIOD/DRAMA
Timmy a child 50miles away from London is experiencing his brother leaving to fight the war while in London a small child named Evan will be in the middle of the London blitz.
DIGITILHEART ORIGINAL
FILM
THE PRODUCTION
CAST AND CREW
BEHIND THE SCENES
MORE FILMS
PRE-PRODUCTION
While we were in the process of pre-production we did a few lighting tests to see what would work in a dark and light environment. I also read out both part the scripts in opposite environments so we can get the feel of what the shots will look like in the final film.
We also did a test of the color grade we would probably use for the film our idea was to completely know that Tuscan lights played a huge part in old households so we will need a slightly orange tint throughout the whole film.
DAY 1
The day started with me driving to pick John Baines up! He was up and ready at 8 and we set off around 10minutes past leaving Melton at quarter past and arriving at Beaumanor at 9, which was our arrival time. We spent about an hour setting up and getting all the equipment together and I was also able to go through the storyboard again with John just so we know 300% exactly what I wanted. An hour went by and John and I set up the first light sequence with me as the subject Alexander and his mother arrived shortly after. After getting the first shot all set and ready I went down to meet them both. After a short chat asking simple questions like “how was your trip” and asking about what will happen in the day we quickly gained a relationship with each other which was great. I then set Alex in position and we got the Hallway shots done. I felt like that hallway sequence went perfectly as I had a lot of space to work with and a beautiful environment to film in! All in the entire shoot went well. We encountered our first problem an hour after the second child arrived. Oliver. We set up the room scene in “King Richards Room” and it was incredibly hard to light mainly because we didn’t have any gels and diffusers so we had to use our clothes. The room looked beautiful but some objects weren’t around in the 1940s that we had to move. Other than that and a few slip-ups on set with either the camera, sound, or kids losing interest the filming went on par and I was very happy with the finished outcome. The biggest problem we had was the child council coming in and with this happening, we were an hour behind shooting once they left. I felt a little attacked, as I never knew they were coming but if it’s needed it was needed. Luckily Alexander’s Mother was willing to stay till 5 and Beaumanor was also willing for us to stay till half 5. This helped us completely and I’m very thankful. We finally had everything we ended and was time to pack up! Ready to go home get some sleep and charge up the batteries.
DAY 2
Today was my most worrying day. At 9 pm after shooting a friend of mine who was going to play the character “Tamara” Cancelled on me. I won’t name names but it got me very worried as I only had one day to shoot. Luckily my friend Samantha Weight who’s an inspiring actor was free! I asked her to do her 1940s style makeup and sent her a lot of inspiration and I told her before we shoot at 10 I would get her some 1940s style clothes. At 8 am I went to Oxfam to hopefully find some stuff. To my surprise, I found everything within 10minutes and more. I knew this was going to be a great day. After I picked Andrew Miles up (Grip) and Samantha Weight up from the train station. We arrived at Beaumanor at 10 and just spoke about her role for a 20minutes in King Richards’s room. After doing a few practices and telling her what to say and taking a few pictures of us two together in the role. We went downstairs to the cellar to do the Sound. Now for a shot I have is a sequence where the brother and Girlfriend are arguing about Him leaving to fight for the country. Now I didn’t want to shout and scream in the hallway of Beaumanor as I believe it would be rude, UN welcoming and just disrespectful. So we did all the ADR in the basement and hope to god it would sound right on the screen. Luckily it did within the edit. This toke many attempts but we finally got a perfect audio file. (You can listen to them down below)
DAY 3
Here it is the final day. For some reason when I woke up I felt like it was going to be a great day and we’d finish earlier than normal mainly because when do the actual light set up we won’t have to change it so much mainly because of the character will not move throughout the whole film. I was feeling good. There was not much to complain about this day because everything went well. I picked Jon and Tom Wallbanks up at 8 once again and arrived at the place at 9. I Told Alexander and Oliver to arrive an hour later mainly because we all knew that lighting the basement would stake a very long time. The Lights were the hardest part of the day. There were so many shadows and so many things we couldn’t light or not light because of the pillars and probs. At once we started filming. Alexander and Oliver didn’t like the place at first because it was very wary and dark. We also take the parents downstairs to show them the set and hopefully get used to seeing what we do. We all had a chat and at 1 we started filming. The shoot went well and all the angles looked beautiful. Oliver did very well as Evan and I’m very proud of his performance it just would of went a lot faster if he wasn’t such a chatterbox! Which personal I thought was lovely to have someone very interested in what we do! It just would do went faster! At lunch, I take the children to their parents and gave them food while Tom, Baines, and I did wild tracks in the “King Richards Room” and the “Basement”. After lunch, we got straight back down to filming the shoot as gain went very well we just had some light issues. At 3:30 Alexander had to go camping, which was fine as he was only reading lines so they could both bounce off each other. Before 3 we were done with Timmy’s lines. The shoot was almost over until we spent one hour on the last panning shot. It was a very hard shot to get right for Tom and Evan. Tom had to pan so slowly to keep up with Evans's timing and Evan had to remember such a big speech. They both clashed many times but by the final shot they finally both got it right. We also had the mother involved to hold a diffuser over the light. Other than that the shoot went fantastic and I was very happy with the outcome!
