TREE

Happy Happy Joy Joy.

People have been ringing me up asking if I'm OK.  They have read the blog and are worried I'm depressed.  Well I was...for about a day!  Sorry if this blog has given you the impression I'm a tortured soul.  I'm not.

See, I did enjoy myself.

Reports back from the crew are that they really enjoyed the film too, which is very good to know.

Having watched the rushes from last weekend I am absolutely delighted with the shots and performances we captured.  The Tree just looks gorgeous, and the other pick ups add so much to the story.  I'm really pleased we got them.

Looking forward now to see what Ralph does with his edit.  I'm sure he'll surprise me.

That's a Wrap

Sunday October 22nd - PICK UPS DAY TWO

It rained again. 

I shouldn't expect anything more of England in October really!  But, despite the horrendous conditions, we shot everything we went back to get, so I'm extremely pleased.

Again, Beth and Clive were true professionals, and the crew were fantastic; I can't thank them enough for all their hard work and patience. With these shots we now have a far better ending to our film, and although it rained, at least they will match the shots from the previous shoot.

So that's a wrap for the shooting stage of this film, and believe it or not, I really enjoyed shooting this film.  I meet some brilliant new people, and in between down pours, had a lot of fun.

Now the production moves on to the edit, sound design, and post production stage...

...and I'm excited.

Rain before 7 clears by 11

DAY ONE OF PICK UPS.

Fine, wet, drizzly, persistent rain.  That was the weather that greeted us on our return to the wood yesterday, as we came back for our first day of pick up shots. 
This was how we left the wood two weeks ago, with it raining.

"Don't worry," said Peter "rain before 7 clears by 11." 

With only a crew of six,  we set up as quickly as we could, but just as the camera was ready, the rain grew harder.  We had a cup of tea while we waited to see if it would ease.  After a while I decided to push on regardless.   We lined up the shot. Peter lit it, got his f-stop ready, then suddenly out pops the sun. 

We all look at our watches. It is 11am.

From that point on we pretty much have constant sunshine all day.  We whiz through the shot list capturing the all important shots of our hero TREE that will open the film. Filming is so much more pleasant in the sunshine.

Lets hope tomorrow's weather is as good to us when we have Beth and Clive back with us.

Rough Assembley

Over the last week I have had a chance to review the rushes with a fresher, more rational pair of eyes. We sat down with our editor Ralph Foster and viewed a very rough assembly I had cut to get a feel for what we have, and haven't got.  We always knew we may have to go back to do pick ups, but due to the rain on the last day of the shoot that list grew a little.

We are under a little pressured  to shoot soon, by the ever changing season, the weather, and the work commitments of our cast and crew.So we have a "fun" week ahead of us as we plan to go back to the TREE.  One thing we know is that we will not have available to us the size of crew we had on the main shoot.

What spurs us on however is that the footage we have so far, even in it ungraded stage, looks stunning.

Beth Winslet
(Copyright Slinky Pictures 2006.  All Rights Reserved)

Photos Added

I've added some production photos to my previouse posts.  Hope they give you a flavour of the shoot.

DAY THREE

"Red sky in the morning, Shepherd's warning!"

Thursday October 5th

As we all assembled early round the catering truck to get a bacon and egg sarny the clouds were already rolling in.  Up at the TREE location it was dark and grey, in complete contrast to the previous days.

DP Peter Ellmore

We are not going to be able to shoot everything that is outstanding, so I have been through the storyboard to see what shots I could loose or amalgamate.  It is not a nice job, and feels a bit like betraying a friend.  There are some shots however that we absolutely have to get today or we don't have a film.  One is a stunt scene with Beth, and then there is the small matter of the films ending, which we were hoping to try and shoot a few different ways.

Hair & Make Up artist Jo Grover

We start by quickly knocking off some P.O.V's of the tree while Clive and Beth are in make up.  Then it is time for Bob our stunt coordinator to set up.  Bob's credit list is as long as it is impressive, and his common sense, no problem approach is very reassuring not only to me and Liz, but also Beth.
The sky has even lightened a little by the time we are ready to roll.  So far, this morning has been productive, we have shot a lot, but as lunch is called the forecast rain arrives. 

Unfortunately for us it seemed to like the spot and decided to stay for the rest of the day.

5 more dry hours is all we needed and we would have got the majority of the shots we needed.  Rain slows down a crew like nothing else.  It is very hard to maintain a positive attitude in the face of  relentless rain.  We struggle on regardless, but more shots are sacrificed.  It is depressing and everyone can see it on my face.   They bravely try to smile, but all I can think of is that this crew has invested so much time and energy in this film, and by extension, me, and now the film has been compromised by the film makers oldest enemy; precipitation.

I feel like I have failed everyone.   A little voice in my head is whispering, "the audince isn't going to care that it rained while you were shooting!"

The light begins to fade earlier today than on the previous days, and the rain is getting heavier. It is wet and muddy, we are in a wood and losing light and we have a ton of kit to pack away before it is dark. We shot one more set up and then that is it, a wrap.
I remember at the end of shooting my last film how depressed and full of self doubt I felt.  Well that was nothing compared to the end of this one.  It certainly wasn't how I wanted the shoot to finish, on a wet and downbeat note...but such is life.

Up until this moment things have been great, but this blog is about the ups and downs of film making, and Thursday afternoon was a big down.  I just have the film makers equivalent to post natal depression.  This feeling will abate given a few days and some perspective on the situation, and soon I'll grow to love this new born again.

Photos by Robin Brigham

DAY TWO

Wednesday October 4th

Clive Brunt enjoys a joke between takes.

The sun is shining again today, but the weather report says rain tomorrow, so we absolutely have to knock through our shots.  We can't drop stuff today and expect to pick them up tomorrow.  As I mentioned before, you plan diligently for months to get ready for a shoot so that you can move and work as seamlessly as possible as a crew, but there is no getting away from the fact that in the end, it is just a race to get everything done in time.  I don't want to misrepresent  crew, everyone is working as fast as they can, and capturing some great shots, but there is no doubting that with more time we could do an even better job.

 

I have given up looking at my watch, time is the enemy and I don't want to look him in the face.  Ezra my 1st AD informs me it will soon be time for lunch, but we try to sneak in another set up before we break.

We set the angle, we chose the lens, we prepare to rehearse and then the latch on our prop trunk snaps off!  I'm not into pointing fingers, and even if i was they would only point back to me, as not only am I directing, but I'm also art directing, prop wrangling and set dressing.  I was the one how glued the latch on in the first place instead of fixing it more permanently.  Lunch is called. 

We decide to drill and screw the latch securely back onto trunk.  Great plan, why didn't I just do that in the first place!  Right were is the latch?   Ok...now I have dropped the broken bit on the floor, and being the same color as the loose leafy mulch it has vanished.   Liz, my father (who I have press ganged into the crew) and myself, now ferret round on all fours in the dirt, desperately searching for a small dirt colored piece of metal.  I try hard not to panic.

10 minutes later dad finds it.  We quickly screw it into place before I can lose it again, and avoid an embarrassing disaster.  Most of the crew return from lunch moments later none the wiser.

After that we really do crack on, even managing to claw back some of the dropped shots from the previous day. 

However, tommorow is crunch day.

Photos by Unit Photographer Pascal Molliere

EXT. WOODED LANE -- DAY ONE

Tuesday October 3rd.

On longer projects there is usually a ramp up period built into the schedule to allow cast and crew to get up to full production speed.  On a short film you don't have that luxury. You have to hit the ground running from the first hour of the first day.  No easy feat!  Add to that a crew that is new to each other, first day nerves, and a location out in the back of beyond, and you have all the making for a right little disarster.  But I think we did pretty well to start shooting our first shot not long after 9pm, which was pretty good going.  The sun was shining, spirits were high, and everyone knuckled down to the job at hand.

Being a road location everyone was wearing High Vis Jackets so there was no hiding out presence.  This particular piece of road had required obtaining the permission of around 4 separate trusts, councils, and local authorities, but it was worth it, as the location looked great.

As we were only going to be there for one day there were some shots that were absolutely crucial to get, and we tried to prioritize these.  We had scheduled other shots that were not reliant on the location too in the hope that we could maximize the day, but it soon became apparent after lunch we would not get everything.

I a firm believer in feeding the crew well, but there is also a side of me that wishes we could just shoot on through.  As we were reliant on sunlight, our shooting day was limited to 10 hours, and they seemed to speed past. 

There was no real incidents to speak of, everyone did a great job, and a productive day ended with the camera strapped to the side of a car, ready for us to shoot a shot of Beth driving.  The rig was quite impressive but it was a race to get the shot before we lost the light.
Knowing we had some pick ups to do the next day was a worry, and made my stomach knot even tighter. 

Driving back that night we get a call that unfortunately the rushes will not make the night bath.  We will not see anything tomorrow.  Maybe it is a good thing?  We won't have time for reshoots anyway.

Photos by Unit Photographer Pascal Molliere

Transit

Monday October 2nd was all about logistics.  The boring, back breaking side of low budget film making that everyone forgets about - moving kit from one place to another.  In our case, 3 vehicles full of signs, cones, props, camera, grip, and lighting gear, all needing to be hauled from one side of London to the the other.
For this we had two vans and a truck.  The vans were driven and loaded respectively by Peter and myself, and the truck was collected and driven by our wonderful Grip, Mark Morley.  I really don't know what we would have done without Mark's help.  He was a trouper!

Finished the day by adding final touches of paint to some of the props, then went to bed....then lied awake worrying that I'd forgotten something, but what?

3 Days - Blood, Sweat, and Tears

Over the course of 3 days this past week we finally committed to celluloid, the images, ideas, and performances we had been planning, and dreaming about for the past 10 months.

Our wonderful cast: Beth Winslet and Clive Brunt both did really fantastic work in bring their respective characters to life, in the face of a very tight and demanding schedule.

Also, another of the great things about this past week was that, as the crew arrived on the first day, the film stopped being my film, and instead it became our film, as everyone involved made a litlle bit of it their own. 

Myself and Liz would like to thank everyone on the crew who freely donated there time, talents, and passion to help us shoot the film. I know we are not finished yet, not by a long way, but a major hurdle has been leapt, and looking at the rushes this weekend, we have some truly scrumptious looking shots as reward for everyones hard work.

But Ladies and Gentlemen let me inform you know, 3 days is a very short period of time to shoot such a film. Too short in fact, especially when 1 of those 3 days was severely compromised by rain!  But what can you do when your film consists completely of exteriors, and you can only afford to shoot for 3 days....Nothing!

Rain aside, the shoot was great fun, (although perhaps my face did not always show it) and all the crew seemed to enjoy themselves, which I am very pleased about.

I had forgotten how physically and emotionally draining shooting can be, and was exhausted by the end of it.  Much sweat was excreted, and many tears were shed, (Beth quite literally cry herself dry) and although thankfully no blood was spilt, it did pump vigorously through sheer effort. 

I had been hoping to blog  as we shot, but perhaps unsurprisingly, directing a film and blogging are just a little difficalt to do simultaneously. However, over this next week i'll recount - as best as I can - in flashback, the shooting days as they happened.