I started the day arriving at the location in the early morning. Drey was organized to pick up Claudia so this gave me a chance to make sure everything was ready and in place. I put all the food for lunch in the fridge and went to the first scene to make sure all the batteries were charged and all the equipment was there and ready to go. I next made sure all of the actresses costumes were laid out and ready for her to put on when she arrived. Once everything was in order, I then went to the first scene again and dressed the set. Since this was actually a teenage girls bedroom I wanted it to be more of an adults bedroom. I took down posters and moved toys and anything that would look odd in the scene. I next laid out the pills on the floor and had the bandages ready for the actress to put on. After looking over my shot list again the actress arrived we all had a quick meeting about the schedule for the day.
When the actress was changed and ready we all moved to the first scene in the bedroom. Drey checked the camera and her settings, as well as the lighting, and George took notes to help with his editing. Once we were all ready we then began to start filming.
We started with the tracking shots as these were longer to do and after each take, I reviewed the footage to make sure it was exactly how I wanted it. I would say to Drey about the speed and movement of the camera on the track whilst telling the actress how I wanted her to look expressively and making sure she knew her blocking throughout the scene. Both took direction really well and I was very happy with the footage that we got.
Once This was done I could then go through the static shots again telling Drey the type of framing I wanted and explaining to the actress exactly how I wanted her to move and react. Since there was going to nothing shaky throughout the shoot we used a tripod to do all of the static shots rather than handheld so that everything was perfectly still. Once these were done I then was able to do close-ups of the actress, props and the graphic George had created on the TV to ensure I had a lot of variety so that it would make the edit easier and we had a lot of choices. Once this scene was complete we then moved onto the next which was in the hallway.
The first half of this scene was fairly straightforward with a static shot on the stairs and a close-up of the actress coming down. I was conscious that they were quite long shots but this is how I wanted it to build tension. When we got to the second half of the scene this was when the most complicated shot of the whole shoot appeared. At the bottom of the hallway, I had laid the track and wanted a 2 step glide movement. the first step was panning as the actress came down the stairs and then the camera would move backward on the track as she walked towards it down the hall. Although this sounds simple it proved to be difficult as I discovered it looked great when the pan and the backward slightly overlapped each other as one would end and one would start. We did take after take of this until eventually we achieved it perfectly and got the shot I wanted.
Frustrations ran high doing that shot but everyone kept calm and perseverance paid off. I decided to call lunch so we could dock the footage, review it and take a break. Once lunch was finished we moved into the third and final scene. This consisted of shooting in the kitchen/ living room area. We started off on tripod as I wanted to do a static panning shot of the actress walking over to the sink. When she sees the glass of water she rushes to the sink and quickly has a glass of water due to thirst. All of the over shots before have been slow so I wanted to make this a little bit different and off guard. The pan starts slow as the character enters the kitchen and then speeds up as she rushes over to the sink. This worked really well and added a different shot to what we have already got so far. I also wanted a close up to cut into this so we went through the window so we could get a face on approach.
Finally, we had a shot with the track again and we did a different kind of movement. The character walks towards the camera as its slides slowly left and then pans to follow her as she walks away from it. This created a really nice effect and after a few take's I was very happy with it. Overall I'm very happy with how the shoot went and I feel I directed everyone really well in terms of camera and blocking. The footage looks really good and I'm excited to do the next day of shooting.
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