Production Diary #5 - Shooting Day 2
For me, Day 2 started for me less than 2 hours after Day 1 had finished. I’d gone to bed after 4am and had to get up at 6am. Like the previous day, I spent most of the morning feeling ill.
Once we got on location and started shooting (behind schedule, of course) the sickly feeling slowly went away for the first time. I did however find that I wasn’t able to eat or drink, and realised that all I’d eaten was a bowl of porridge, 2 slices of pizza and a pear in the last few days.
Despite my obviously sleep and nutritional deprivation I felt surprisingly ok, and once we started shooting, the day moved relatively swiftly.
The day was hardest on our set designer, Joe. Joe spent most of the day carrying various bits of furniture and props around wellington (and when he wasn’t doing that, became a fill in runner) due to our lack of cars. In a somewhat surreal moment I went to get in the lift and Joe came out carrying a large arm chair, quite literally dripping in sweat. He’d carried the chair by himself up a narrow and steep set of stairs, up a hill, and then back down the other side of the hill. Having moved the chair myself, it’s awkward enough carrying it with two people, I have no idea how he managed it alone.
It was Joe’s first shoot and he was really chucked in the deep end. He handled it impressively well on the day, although I’m sure he’s learnt a lot. And may never want to make another film again.
Joe’s work acts as a testament to how important the right attitudes are on film sets. It would’ve been easy for him to become frustrated (and I’m almost certain he did) because at times he was running around after people - which was most certainly not his job. But if he hadn’t of done so, this film wouldn’t be possible. If any of the people we’ve had hadn’t been so hard working and positive there is no way we would could be making this film. Having people who are willing to pitch outside their departments where required is hugely important on a (low budget) film set. And Joe’s work (as runner, not set designer) made me realise how vital and underrated the work of a reliable runner/production assistant is.
Day 2 really reinforced the importance of the work we’d done in rehearsals. In just 15 minutes, we could work out the best way to play a scene in a rehearsal. But trying to rehearse on set, in small spaces with a heap of people and gear, is nearly impossible. If we hadn’t had rehearsed each scene already, the quality of our actors performances would’ve been greatly diminished - we simply wouldn’t have the time or space to refine things to the same level. That’s not to say things weren’t reworked on set - they were. But not as drastically as we did in rehearsals. Without the base that rehearsals gave us, the small adjustments we made on the day wouldn’t have been possible, and ultimately would’ve damaged the film.
We finished at our first location on time, and although we were packed, leaving and just resetting at the time we were meant to, the security guard kicked us out. As a result a number of decorations from the location appear to have gone missing, which is disappointing and embarrassing (the location had been very helpful, so it hurts to let them down) and gave me more headaches to deal with when I should’ve been focusing on the next days of shooting.
The next location we went to with a barebones crew of just the actors and camera crew. We were shooting in a SPCA (or RSPCA if you’re from the UK) which filled in for a hospital. It worked really well, and being a charity, they were so much more accommodating and helpful than a hospital would’ve been.
We wrapped about 20 minutes later than scheduled, which given the fact we started an hour late, should be considered a pretty successful day.
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Unstuck is a film being produced for entry into the New Zealand Tropfest Competition in 2015. Director, Jonathan Mines, is keeping a regular production diary here. More updates can be found on Facebook and Twitter.