At 2PM on Thursday 11th December the filming of the working title production of 'Cleaners' officially wrapped. This has thus ended a highly stressful production, and with only six days remaining until the final presentation, it is crucial that we do not take our foot off the gas. This post will hopefully clarify the process over the last three days of shooting. I will then go on to analyse the strengths, weaknesses and improvements of the piece from several angles, including variety of shots, commitment of team members, and time constraints.
TUESDAY 9th DECEMBER 2014
With our schedule demanding a full days filming from 9AM to late afternoon on the 10th, I made two posts regarding the schedule. The first came on Sunday in which I quote the following snippet of the post '
Monday: look at brys edit, adjust and approve. Tuesday ADR dialogue for house, get equipment, Set Up the house Wendsday: Diner scene (must complete) rest of Phillips shots, the Final reflection shot, import and edit. Thursday: Callum's individual scenes to be finished.'. This has clearly stated my intention to collect equipment on that day. The screen shot confirming that post on the 7th December can be seen below.
To ensure that everyone was informed of the equipment collection, I followed up with the following post on the 9th December (see image)
 |
| 9th december post |
With the equipment situation resolved, it was time to attend to some production work. Due to technical faults in the equipment on the first day of shooting, dialogue has become required to ADR (additional dialogue recording), so we brought Callum in to re speak his lines for the interior and exterior of the crime scene. The only thing that Phillip sadly could not make it in for some unknown reason, but I believe it to be due to the short notice. The only thing that went right on this particular day, was Callum's ADR which in itself went very well, and has hopefully given us a decent set of lines to dub over the footage.
That evening I received a producers worst nightmare, Phil responded to my confirmation text saying
I can't make it tomorrow Josh' which for me personally was hectic, as we only had the diner booked for that Wednesday from 9AM-12AM. My first instinct was to cancel filming as around 70% of what needed to be filmed was involving Phil in shot. However once I calmed down a bit, an idea that Laurence thought of in the early stages came to mind. He basically had an idea, that one of us could get in the suits for those scenes as you don't see the actor per say. As we have shots of Phil up till the point where he has gotten his uniform on. So I brought up the idea that we can do all of Callum's shots in the morning as well as have one of is in Phil's suit so we can compensate for the montage. This I felt also brought us a unique opportunity. If we can succeed in making people believe that that is Phil in the uniform doing the cleaning, we have acheived the art of illusion. As big productions use stunt and body doubles all the time, it is a useful skill to try out.
I carried on to formulate the plan for Wednesday's shooting. With this idea brought out and confirmed, it was time to look into the matter of the diner. I decided that Kieran and Myself would go to the diner at the agreed time, and explain the situation. This I fought was more practical, as it meant me and Kieran could get to Laurence's and set up prior to Callum's arrival, and also show a sense of professionalism to try and secure the location for another day. Phil's reason of absence was a reasonable one, as he had to take his wife to hospital that day. I then collaborated to confirm if he could do Thursday as the plan was to shoot pick up's with Callum that day as well, to which Phil responded yes. With our plan for Wednesday secured, the fate of this project teetered on the edge until Wednesday, as it was essential to get the diner location. Below are two screenshots both before and after I thought up a back up plan.
 |
| Initial plan regarding Phil's absence |
 |
| Final Plan post |
WEDNESDAY 10th DECEMBER
As I had arranged with Kieran the previous night, I called on him at 8:30AM with some of the equipment, and thus we went to the diner. The owner Nicola was quite understanding about the reason, however she wanted us to check if the actors could come in Friday, but would do Thursday if needed. Her reasoning was to make sure that the cleaner wasn't around, or at least wouldn't be in our way. I texted the actors, but unfortunately Phillip works Friday-Sunday so I informed the location. It was now down to them to confirm Thursday's time. Between 9:30AM and 11AM Kieran and myself got to Laurence's and did two extra journeys to collect the equipment from mine. On the second return, Bryony had arrived with Callum and Marcus and we got to lighting the kitchen scene for Callum.
Callum got into his gear (see image) and Laurence went about directing the scene (see image)
 |
| Laurence shooting close up |
 |
| Callum in gear |
 |
| Lawrence tracking Callum |
.We did a full tracking shot and various close ups of the scene, including a shot from within the fridge, which will make a nice transition shot. We wrapped with Callum about 12PM and while everyone was at lunch, I was midway through packing up equipment, when I realised I forgot to do a birds eye view of his hand trailing across the counter. I decided to put the sleeve of the white suit on and one of the rubber gloves, and proceeded to record with the DSLR in my left hand while my right did the motion. I did around five takes in one shot just to get some variety. The shot itself almost becomes a first person shot. Lighting wise for the scene, we didn't want anything to sinister, and didn't use any filters. I made this choice as the lighting in the living room, was intended to give your a foreboding feeling. In the kitchen, we still wanted to catch a tense mood, but instead of playing with colour we simply dimmed down the dedo lights. this created the darkened effect without the use of colours.
In the living room we set up two dedo lights, with the previously used two orange and one black filter combination. The first thing we shot while Kieran for into the gear, was several close ups of out 'blood and gore' with the regular lights on it is pretty obvious what the items on the table really are (chunks of beef/chicken grinder up mixed with tomato puree and water). However with the lighting set up, the meat that I ground with a cleaver and knife mixed with a hefty dose of the puree and water, appeared to be blood and organs (see image). In one close up I filmed I actually was so amazed at the effect that I exclaimed it looked like brains. As well as doing this we also replaced the plastic sheets on the walls we only covered up certain areas that would be in shot (see images).
 |
| tac on set dressing |
 |
| Me cutting up the meat with cleaver |
 |
| Set dressing |
 |
| Set dressing |
 |
| The meat without the deco lights switched on |
 |
| Marcus helping set up |
 |
| Cutting up met again |
With the set and props prepared, Kieran geared up and we went to filming various shots that showed his progress through the room. This included close ups of the item's, sweeping guts into a bag and
walking round the room. In hindsight I am disappointed on the variety, as we filmed more close ups of the blood than we did of him progressing through the room. This means that we will have to intercut him and Duncan in the kitchen, to make the story flow better and keep it interesting. We did try and Foley stuff like walking on sheets, however Laurence failed to keep his flatmates quiet, and most of the foley was disrupted by back ground sound. This has proven a hindrance, and it greatly annoyed the rest of us. The strain of these two filming days being a 'do or die' situation, and with the dinner still unconfirmed, tempers were short. We came out of the shoot with 15GB worth of footage and a tiny amount of foley. Kieran managed to pull of the actions as he was directed, and I believe we may have pulled off the body double effort. Below are images of the days shoot.
 |
| Kieran in gear |
 |
| me preparing a shot |
 |
| Kieran preparing |
 |
| Kieran |
 |
| Marcus doing close ups |
 |
| the set withoug lighting on |
We imported the footage to which we ran into another problem. The mac we were working on in the edit suite was about to white screen. So, we took all the footage and audio from the days shoot and the previous shoot, and put it on Kieran's hard drive. Bryony agreed to download Avids 30 day free trial, so she could edit on their. This way we would not have to rely on the macs in the edit suite. It was all doom and gloom, but then the location got back to me around 6PM telling us to come at 10AM. This meant we could finally get the dinner scene done, and finish pick ups on the house scene. With this plan, I posted the following schedule on out Facebook (see image).
 |
| confirmation on post |
With this plan organised, it was time to go into the final day of filming all guns blazing.
THURSDAY 11th DECEMBER
I was awoke at 7AM this day, to receive word from Bryony that she had a migraine and wanted me to tell Marcus to meet Phil. She stated that she could show up later after the migraine meant, and was really sorry. She was asking if she fucked everything up, and thought it was disappointing, I said we would work around it. After hanging up, I had a half hour nap then work up and decided to ring Kieran and ask him to meet the actors, as Marcus has thus far proved to be unreliable. I explained the situation to Kieran and he agree to go meet the actor.To ensure that the spirit was high, I went to Aldi after calling Kieran and brought a loaf of bread, butter and ham. I then set about making sandwiches from the whole loaf. This would ensure that Phil could eat something in the Café and also make sure that the cast and crew could eat something over what could have been a long day. I also packed a cup and plate to use as props in the diner. I got the location at 10, and Laurence Kieran and Phil (the actor) arrived shortly after, to which we began to set up. My intuition was right as Marcus didn't show up. Callum was running a bit late and informed me of his absence which was greatly appreciated, while we waited we selected a table to use then got some establishing shots of Phil.
Callum arrived and we set about doing the shots. To maximise productivity of the shots, me and Laurence filmed the conversation via cross coverage whilst Kieran acted as our boom operator. Sadly this would be the only source of dialogue sound we would be able to record, so we ensured that we got many takes of the audio. some of it was spoiled by background sound, but with at least ten takes of the dialogue, I believe we covered it enough. Laurence changed the way Duncan enters the diner, without informing me, so the POV shot I recorded proved useless. I filmed several close ups and with the phone scene, I tried to centre frame the phone as much as possible, and enhance its importance within the piece. One major positive from this scene, was the fact that we knew what to do should the audio mess up this time around. Bryony informed us that she could arrive to do the house scene, which definitely raised moral. We finished up at the diner around half 11, and Laurence ensured that we had the photograph of Phil in the diner. He took the photo, then removed the SD card to go print the photo off while me and Kieran packed the equipment and reached the house.
It was here that things went bad. I managed to reshoot the stuff in the hallway after tin foiling the window, and we did get the photo frame shot covered, which in itself was incredibly difficult, as the slightest move of the focus ring could put the reflection out of focus again. Laurence informed us that he wanted it done quick due to a house viewing at 3PM. This mean all of the pick ups I wanted to do couldn't be done as I was constantly being bombarded with questions of 'are we done yet?'. This I found to be highly unprofessional and annoying, seeing as Laurence is meant to be the director, yet didn't seem to be bothered about getting everything needed to make it a decent piece of work. I got Phil into the living room to ADR his interior lines and ensure we had stuff to work with. Sadly we were unable to film exterior pick ups as it was raining meaning continuity wouldn't succeed.
The plan now is to get down to editing straight away. Bryony sadly can no longer do it on her mac book as she is having technical difficulty's. Kieran now has everything recorded on his hard drive, and on Friday we imported it onto a computer with plenty of space.
On Monday I will be getting out sound equipment to record all foley we will be needing while Kieran and Bryony organise the sequence and colour correct. The final few days we will be cutting it tight, but I have every faith we can put together a decent piece considering the time period.
