Day 1- Filming - Tuesday 13th March

After a stressful night of trying to make sure everything was sorted, rescheduling scenes and making sure the actors knew everything they needed to, I thought that the first day of filming would run quite smoothly and we would get quite a lot done. I couldn’t be more wrong if I tried! It was an absolute nightmare! When I say nightmare, I’m not exaggerating. All I wanted to do is sit in a corner and cry to myself.

The day started off with me sleeping through my alarm which resulted in me being late. Making my way to college I got a phone call saying that Will (the actor who had dropped out the night before) was now coming in.  Your probably thinking ‘isn’t that a good thing?’ Well yes it would be if I hadn’t already told the actors we were doing other scenes, and some of them didn’t have to be in! So I hadn’t even got to college and everything was starting to go wrong, just what I needed. Eventually all the main cast were told that they had to be in and we were shooting the scenes we originally planned.

As planned we started sending people to the make up artists to get their fantasy make up done. Just as everything started going to plan, the make up artists were saying they had to leave. This was one of them moments where you hit your self on the head and walk away. So after what felt like hours of talking to the make up artists they decided they would stay and finish everyones make up, and 2 of them would stay till the end of the day until we finished filming just in case we needed touch ups.

We finally started filming around 2pm after everyone had been to make up and were in their costumes. All the actors were quite pleased to start filming so were quite focused, and out of everyone the ones that were causing the problem were us. The film crew. Over the past few weeks tension had grew between each of us so it was of course resolved with an argument. As soon as that was done everything seemed to instantly change, we all started working together and respecting each others decisions more, the actors started working with us more and we were actually starting to get on track with filming.

Once we had finished shooting the fantasy class room scene we had a quick break and then made our way to Tees Bararge with the cast. This scene was the one which would start the film off with Sarina reading her fairytale book with all the fairytale characters around her. We positioned all the cast around Sarina who was sat on a bench reading her book and got the cast to look at the book as if they were reading it with Sarina. This should of been a quick shot but it took forever, once we would say 'ACTION' they would start laughing and was now getting dark. We finally called it a day, and decided we would reshoot the bararge scene because it was too dark.

Overall today was probably the most stressful day I've ever had, but I'm glad it happened otherwise the cast and crew wouldn't of worked together and respected each other as much. So I guess a negative balances out for a positive, let's see how tomorrow goes...

Rehearsals- Monday 12th March

Getting all the cast and crew in the same room may seem easy but when other films have cast the same actors it proves to be quite difficult. Today was scheduled in as a rehearsal with the actors and to basically get to know each other. First we had a read through of the script with the full cast and then had a break whilst we got to know them a bit better. After the read through, we got the actors to start acting out some of the scenes. We set the scenes up how they would be and told them our visions for each scene.

So I was just about to go to bed when I get a message from one of the main actors saying 'I most likely wont be coming in tomorrow because I'm ill'. Safe to say my heart sunk. One of the main actors not turning up, are you actually kidding me?! After about an hour trying to re-organise everything we decided to move the sceduled scenes to another day and bring other scenes forward. Sounds easy? Yeh well it wasnt. This was because all of the actors would be in bed, and wouldn't pick the message up until the morning.

Let's just see who turns up tomorrow, and see how everything turns out. How am I feeling you ask? Not very confident at all *sighs* ...

Costumes & Make up- Tuesday 6th March

Since the film flicks between reality and fantasy we decided we wanted to go full out and over the top in the fantasy scenes. Once we had decided on each character and their alter ego (fantasy character) we researched the stereotypical fairytale characters and what they looked like. From this we made a mood boards for make-up and costumes. We then talked to the make up artists and showed them our ideas and they went away and planned make up designs for each character.

After we had sorted the make-up, we went to the costume cupboard at college to look for costumes for each character. After a while we found a lot of different things that would come in useful.

 As well as finding costumes this is what you get when you’re left in the costume cupboard with your friends, it’s not be the best idea...

Scheduling- Monday 5th March

Scheduling the films was pretty hard to start with because we had to go through each script and work out which scenes would be easier to film on the same days and when they needed to be set for example during the day or on a night. When we thought we had everything sorted we realised that the different films were using the same actors on the same dates. So after scheduling we had to go back through everything making sure that the films that were using the same actors didn’t clash.  This seems quite simple, yet making 4 films and casting the same people in each film and only having 3 weeks to completely shoot it resolved in people having to recast as it was impossible for them to be in each film.

Casting- Wednesday 29th February

Setting four chairs and desks in front of the green screen ready for the actors to do a screen test kind of felt like I was Simon cowell judging on X-Factor! Whether that was just me I don’t know! I don’t know about the others, but at this point it all seemed quite real that something i had wrote was getting made in to a proper film. ‘My first proper film’ not every day you get to say that! Anyway this is where everything starts to come in to place. Just have to find the right actors to fit the characters...

Not knowing what to expect everyone in my group got ready and took their roles, one as ‘the writer’ (taking notes), one  constantly nodding and giving them the ‘your doing great’ look and the other keeping a straight face. I don’t know if we all kept them roles but that’s what we tried to come across as. Since the script was known as the ‘Disney’ script the actors prepared monologues from their favourite Disney film or fairytale story.

At the beginning of the casting we didn’t really know what we were doing, we got the hang of things, asking the actors questions that would be relevant if they got a part. We prepared questions such as;

• Do you have any prom wear?
• What would the character your auditioning for portray in the fairytale fantasy? (E.g. Witch, princess, prince, joker etc.)
• And of course what was their favourite Disney or fairytale story and who they would like to play

And vital questions such as; if they had any issues with transport or any dates they would be unavailable.

The funniest answer has got to be James’ who said his favourite Disney film is Toy Story 3 and would love to play Mr Potato Head- thats one i wasn’t expecting and would actually love to see how he would play this character!

Out of everyone’s audition there’s two that stood out. We had someone being  Ursula from the Little Mermaid who was literally shouting at us, seriously if I was the little mermaid I would have been scared of her. And of course we had a monologue from Peter Pan and considering one of the main characters is based on a peter pen / joker character, we instantly knew they would be right for the character.

Anyway it was quite amusing just took forever trying to match people to the right characters. If people fit the roles they didn’t look like the stereotypical characters, if they looked right they didn’t sound right. Guess I’m too picking, but that’s what fairytales do they make you believe everything has to be perfect and then everything will go right in the end....

Again probably getting too much in to the whole fairytale thing, but hey a girl can dream! And when costumes and make up have to be over the top you’ve got to join in with the whole theme... OBVIOUSLY!

Job Roles- Tuesday 28th February

After writing the shooting script we then had to work out which job we each wanted to take on when working on the short film. Since me and Abbie wrote the script we thought it would be a good idea to take the role of Directors and kind of have a Coen Brothers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coen_brothers ) thing going on, so we decided on I would direct the Reality scenes and Abbie would direct the Fantasy scenes and when one of us was Director the other would be assistant Director.  As well as that, I took on the role of Casting Director (again Abbie took this on to) and Location Manager.

What exactly do those roles entail?  

Director- the Director is the driving creative force in a film’s production. They are responsible for taking the written script and changing it in to actual images and sounds on screen, they must visualise and identify the style and structure of the film and act as the storyteller and team leader to bring a vision to reality. The Directors main jobs include; casting, script editing, shot composition, shot selection and editing. The Producer is left to sort out finance and marketing; however the Director must always be aware of the film’s budget and schedule. Being a Director involves great creative vision, dedication and commitment. Directors are ultimately responsible for a films artistic and commercial success or failure.

Casting Director – Casting Directors organise and help casting actors for roles in a film. This involves working closely with the Director and Producer to understand their requirements, and suggesting ideal artists for each role, as well as arranging and carrying out interviews and auditions. Once the parts are cast, the Casting Director negotiates fees and contracts for the actors and act as the connection between the Director, the actors and their agents. They must have in depth and up to date knowledge of new and existing acting talent and know their suitability for the particular role. On larger productions, Casting Directors may supervise Casting Assistants who will support and assist them at work. They are responsible for matching an ideal actor to each role based on the actors experience, ability, reputation, availability and box-office appeal. Casting Directors also work closely with Production Accountants to prepare the casting budget.

Location Manager – The Location Manager’s main role is to find ideal locations for the film shoot. When finding locations, the Location Manager has to talk to the location’s owners about a number of issues such as; the cost and terms of the hire, crew and vehicle access, parking, noise reduction and what official permissions may be required. Once filming begins, the Location Manager is in charge of managing all aspects of shooting in each location and ensuring that every location is in a satisfactory condition after the shoot. On bigger productions, the Location Manager may supervise Assistant Location Managers to find an ideal location for the production.

I basically took on the roles with quite a lot of work, but who says I’m not up for a challenge!? I’m saying that now; let’s just wait a few weeks....

Script Writing –Monday 27th February

For all of those people who have wrote a script before you will admit that it’s quite hard coming up with a narrative, characters, and equilibriums on the way. But when you get told you have to write a completely new script within a couple of days, well it’s quite stressful. This script is for the short films were working on, it has to fit in the drama genre and appeal to the ages of 16-19. You’re probably thinking, easy, she fits in to that age range and I’m sure she can find something dramatic that’s going on in her life to write about. Well yes I would agree with you but when instant panic mode kicks in because all your brain seems to be doing is telling you how long you have left to completely finish a script. IT RESOLVES TO BE QUITE STRESSFUL.



Since my last script had hints of romance in I got put in a group with others whose script also included bits of romance- which would hopefully make it a lot easier for us to write. We brain stormed a lot about what we could do, and then our tutor said ‘I want something a bit happier, something a bit DISNEY’.

You can’t get anymore Disney than this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRYU4cqUAUs

I spent about two days researching Disney films, looking at characters, reading fairytale books From everything I read I started noticing a pattern, the main character from a fairytale is always the vunerable character- someone who is in need of a ‘fairy god mother’ let’s say and in the end they find their ‘prince’ and live happily ever after.
So why not write a script based around that!? Everybody knows fairytales, everyone recognises them, and everyone loves them! So already there’s an audience for it, and not to mention the audience the short film needs to be aimed at would of grew up reading and watching them. 

For the script we settled for a teenage girl called Sarina (which obviously means Princess, haha think we’re getting a bit too much in to the whole Disney thing!) who has grew up picturing her life as a fairytale and that her story would end with her finding her prince charming. But in reality she is just a normal girl whose life is far far away from a fairy tale....

Oh did I mention, it flicks between her reality and her fairytale fantasy? Just wait till you hear about the costumes and make up we’ve got planned for it!