Filming

On Wednesday the 27th October we filmed for our main movie opening. It was definitely an eventful day, and we all went home incredibly tired, but pleased that we'd filmed it.

We decided to film at Alice's house, because her sisters' room was perfect for filming in. We all arrived there at about 10:00, and we had a quick planning meeting where we decided when and where we were going to film each shot. We decided to film the zoom in/zoom out shots of Andrea's outfits first, because we didn't need it to be very light, and the weather was meant to get brighter throughout the day (which it did!). We also filmed the scenes that involved Andrea looking as if she's just got ready, because we knew that we'd need to make her look as if she'd just woken up later in the day.

We had quite a few shots that were difficult to film, including the shots of me lying on the floor having been hit with an alarm clock. This was a problem because of continuity, so I had to lie in the exact same position for around 10 minutes (I was watching the alarm clock while waiting). This was the kind of thing I wouldn't like to film again, mainly because it was incredibly uncomfortable and fairly embarrassing. We also came up with many shots on the spot, for example we chose to film the scene where Andrea's character grabs orange juice instead of milk from inside the fridge, which is an unusual shot and has the added bonus of making a black screen when the door closes, which is perfect for putting some credits.

After a lunch break, we went to the bus stop to film Andrea's character getting on the bus. This was the most stressful part of the day, because we couldn't use Valentina's dad's bus. We also ended up with a rather moody bus driver, which was unfortunate but luckily we still managed to film all we needed. Even more annoying was the bus driver who waved and smiled at the camera when we were filming Andrea from across the road, which is annoying, but we may be able to edit it out somehow. The actual filming was also difficult while on the bus, because the bus was very jerky, so it was impossible to film without any shakiness. We decided that this was to our advantage, however, because it would give the viewers the feel of being on a bus, and it makes it more realistic. After having gone from Enfield Town to Brimsdown we discovered that we had left the tripod clip on the bus, which was a bit of a pain but not too much of a problem because the rest of our filming was fine to do with the gorilla pod.

We then got back to Alice's house to film the beginning scenes. After back-brushing Andrea's hair and messing up her makeup we filmed her character waking up and throwing the alarm clock out of the window. This was also difficult to do, as it was Andrea's alarm clock and she didn't want it broken, so we first filmed Andrea throwing the clock to Alice, who was behind the camera, and then of me out of shot, throwing the clock out of the window with Alice and Valentina outside with a blanket to catch it. We managed to do two or three shots with an unscathed alarm clock and filmed our efforts on the main camera, so that any good shots we got we'd have them on the right definition. We also practiced before throwing the clock, using a hairbrush and an oyster card holder.

By the end of the day (about 5:00) we were exhausted, and filmed a victory video on the flip before passing out...