PRODUCTION LOG BY CHILAPI

PRODUCTION LOG JANUARY- Around January me and Hannah had to decide on the genre and storyline of our film, we knew that we wanted our film to be horror and drama based but we couldn’t decide on what the film should content. This leaded us on to coming up with films that we believed could help us come up with a storyline. We ended up coming across a film by Tyler Perry called ‘For Coloured Girls’. We found this film very meaningful to us as it contained five colored girls that all had a specific issue that many females of today come across. From this we decided to have the main character as a female due to the vulnerability that females have stereotypically. The film Co loured Girls contained rape scenes that we thought we could add on to our film but we then had to decide on exactly how we would portray this film but in order to do this we had to ensure that we had a specific age rating that we were going for in order to uplift the idea of how we were going to portray a rape scene if we were to have one. FEBRUARY throughout this whole month we came up with a storyline of the main character getting raped by someone she thought she could trust.we were very confident that this could work but we just had troubles finding actors to take on the role of getting raped or rapping another as its a sensitive thing to do not many people would feel comfortable with these roles, especially as how they wouldn't be getting any profit from it. 14/4/15 – On this day we had a new teacher and he came up with a list of things for us to do; the list consisted of creating a storyboard, release forms, shot lists, shooting schedule, scripts, location release forms, recces, production roles and call sheets. After receiving a list of things to do in our groups we then had to make a decision on who was doing what. In order to do this we had to ensure that we knew who was capable of doing what so that things were done fairly and to our whole group’s best. This also had to be done so that things could run smoothly within the group as this would cause less commotion and we would all work professionally as a group. On this day I decided to take on the roles of getting on with the storyboard, shooting schedule, shot list and Hannah took the roles of creating the recce, location release forms and production roles and call sheets. This day lead on to a lot of confusion as our new teacher gave us some positive feedback that then made us have to change the structure of the film idea we came up with in order to get the marks that we wanted an to make our film much more easier to produce. So in order to start off with the list that was given to us by our new teacher we had to change the structure of our film as well as the whole storyline that we had come up with. 15/4.15 – on this day me and Hannah had a discussion on what we would've wanted to occur in our film and storyline. We came up with two of our own ideas individually and tried to get some assistance from our teacher on which idea to use as a story line of our film. This was done to expand out on the creativity of the group seeing how two ideas are better than one; another reason to why we did this was so that I and Hannah were both satisfied with the story line which would make a smooth running of team work. Our teacher stated that my idea had a better chance of being made within the space of time being given, however Hannah’s idea also consisted of ideas that we could add on. Based on our teacher’s feedback we decided to eliminate the idea of the main character being rape, the thought that if wouldn’t fit in with our target audience and it would impossible of our crew to shoot a rape film as members of the public in our location (Slade Green) could end up feeling uncomfortable with it and we could end up with a complaint from the local council. We also changed the location from Shooters Hill to Slade Green as we were initially meant to film in shooters hill that Hannah’s friend said that we could shoot in but that all changed as the house that she provided was unavailable due to family issues that had occurred during this time. 20/4/15 - Me and Hannah decided to not have any dialogue in our film and to just use ambiance sounds and music or sound effects in the background to make our film more effective. we suggested this via a phone call meeting we had during the week. 21/4/15 - on this day we limited our characters to two by just having the protagonist and the antagonist as the only characters in our film. the story line had completely changed as the main character Alex no longer gets raped; we decided that she should just get followed by an anonymous person while shes on a journey home. we made the hook of the film start as soon as the main character came out of the train station and feels as if shes being followed. due to this being said we made sure that our story line had some sort of tension and suspense so we ended up coming up with a twist that meant that the whole time she was being followed by some stranger, it was actually her boyfriend that was trying to convince her that shes too paranoid. however, she gets home safely, finds flowers at her doorstep and ends up getting too paranoid when she hears the doorbell ring- due to this she she ends up getting a weapon before opening the door; she finds out its her partner and that would be the twist of the film. 21/4/15 - We had to continue with our production logs and identify which actors we were going to use in our film. by the end of this meeting we already knew to was going to act in out film - Hannah then started the actors release form 23/4/15 – Hannah had completed the script of the film which looked like it contain over 40 shots. And I had completed the storyboard that consisted of 40 plus shots which were of all the scenes that were going to be in our film. We had updated them onto our blogs by then. Hannah then went onto creating the casting decisions which was basically a list of the actors that were needed in our film that stated why she chose them. The reason for this being made was so that we knew who exactly was going to be appearing in our film. Another reason to this was due to the fact that our actors needed had to fit correctly into their roles, without the actors’ description sheet we wouldn't know who would play the roles of Alex and her boyfriend and we wouldn't needed to ensure that they were capable of taking on these roles and fitted into them perfectly. 28/4/15 – We uploaded our post-production work carrying on with our pre-production logs. Hannah uploaded the risk assessments of our location, this was done to ensure that our crew were aware of all hazards that could prevented us from created our film. I also uploaded the shooting schedule onto the blog, we were slightly behind at this stage but we were trying to contribute a lot of concentration with the preproduction log. 5/5/15 - This was the fixed date to start shooting most of out film, however, one of our actors were unavailable due to them having an exam on this day. This stressed out the group as we didn't expect this to happen and we didn't even produce ourselves with back up actors; from this mistake we've learnt to always have a consistency of having back up actors and equipment. Due to this matter we decided to not waste anymore time and just shoot all the scenes that had the actor that was available in it by himself. This was done smoothly, but as the producer of the film I do believe that I should have produced a back up actor to play the role of Alex to prevent time being deducted from our post production time. 6/5/15 - On this day we decided to film every shoot that was left but this time with all the characters. Hannah had to act in another film for about an hour, this was okay because he had enough time in the day to start shooting from then. However, I had an unexpected meeting to attend to. This took about an hour and I had forgotten about us having to shoot today and all crew members were at the location set (my house). This was very awkward for the group as I was too far to be there within 20minutes and it was raining. Because of my inconsistency of communication all the crew members were left out in the rain and decided to just call it a day. Leaving me with an angry crew and wasted production and post production time. We had to shoot another day. 7/5/15 - This was the next day set for shooting after all the commotion I caused for the group. The whole group we're just not bothered and I thought that our chances of even creating a film was just sinking. However, we all came together as a crew and tried to speak things out and find time to shoot today. Once again our main character was a no show due to exams. We all decided that I was going to take on the role of Alex (the main character). This was a decision we made as a group because we had no choice and I was already familiar with the character; I've also had some acting experience in the past so that was an advantage for us. On our way to the location (my house) I could sense a lot of tension coming from everyone throughout the whole journey and this wasn't healthy for our shoot at all. So i took the crew to my house and made them some pizza just to break the ice. It was also my way of apologizing to the group for my lack of communication and wasting their time. This went on well and we took a lot of shots that day and everyone was happy. However, we did get kicked out from one of the locations which was the train station. This was due to the fact that Hannah didn't get permission from the southern eastern line but by then we had already got the shots that we actually needed so it wasn't so bad after all. Me and Hannah decided to set another date for us to come together again to get some pick up shots just in case. So arranged this to happen on the 10th May, around 15:00 after Hannah had attended church. 8/5/15 - This was the next day set for editing. I had a job meeting on this day so i really had to squeeze in time to edit before i left the editing suite. Once i finally found the chance to do so, i found out the the iMac I had to use to edit was faulty - this really stressed me out as i knew that the deadline was so close. There was nothing for me to do and the technicians were not available at this point so my film was at risk of taking a risk by missing out on my first day of editing. There was nothing for me to do but go for my job meeting and find time to edit on the next day. 10/5/15 - On this day Hannah came over my house so we could get some pick up shots for our film. This went on smoothly as she came on time, we got all the shots we needed and we had nothing but positive vibes. 11/5/15 - On this day I was meant to be editing but college work had taken over all my time so the post production of the film had to be postponed again, limiting my editing time was a difficult decision. 12/5/15 - Today was the deadline for my film so i had to make sure that I got as much edited as I could - I had four -five hours to edit and i still felt as if it wasnt enough time due to how much time my group spent on filming itself. I do believe that I rushed my editing and it could have been better if the whole production crew (including myself) had things organised and done in a smooth process. In order to do this i would have to make sure that our plans were realistic and not just set up on random dates because we think its okay to spend time doing nothing then when we get nearer to the deadline we'd start rushing the whole process and making everything stressful for every crew member. But that was the end of the production process and this was all that mattered.