Filming-01/12/14

The next shoot day was to re-shoot the call centre and elevator scenes that were having to be changed since we had to cast a new actor.

Call sheet below:

We had an agreement with the library that we could shoot after 6:30pm as can be seen in the screenshots below:

However on our arrival at the library we were informed that as the staff had not been told of the shoot we were not allowed to film. Due to this we had to find a spare classroom in the Owen building to set up our call centre scene.

Another problem that occurred during this part of the filming was the absence of a sound recordist. T.S. had informed us well in advance that he was unable to record sound due to a rehearsal so we asked our sound recordist, Tyrese, if he was available. Tyrese agreed to record sound as seen below in the screenshot:

Tyrese, who's FB name in this case is ArtistSimple, agreed above to attend the shoot and record the sound. However when he didn't turn up at the shoot we rang him and he said that we had not informed him of filming and said he wasn't going to show up.

Due to this we had to record the sound using just the Zoom attached to the camera rather than with a boom mic like we planned.

Forms and contacting Emmaus

To schedule the shoot at Emmaus I emailed their retail manager Charley. She was very interested in the film and agreed to let us film as long as it was before the shop opens at 9am.

As an agreement we are going to show the name of the shop during the film and make sure to thank them and the credits to help promote the shop.

Email sent to the charity shop

Filming-28/11/14

The next day we met at 7:30am to film the charity shop scene. We had contacted a charity shop called  Emmaus which not only supports homeless people in Sheffield but also provides them with food and shelter in exchange for them volunteering at the shop.

We felt this was the most suitable place to film the scene as we wanted to give the shop some coverage and really push our message through the film.

As we had less time than we first anticipated we were only able to film for 50 minutes as the charity shop wanted us to have left by 9am so they had time to set up. However we worked quickly to make sure we had all the the footage we would need.

T.S. did sound as Tyrese was unavailable for the shoot.

Call sheet for the day:

Filming-27/11/14

Our next scheduled shoot was to do the underpass scene. However our actor was now unable to shoot during the day because of a job interview so we changed the filming time to 6:30pm and decided to shoot the fight scene and the news reporter scene instead.

For the fight scene we used an alley just to the side of Danayet's house. The orange lighting created great silhouettes on the camera but also added an atmosphere to the whole scene as both actor and audience were unable to make out the faces of the people involved in the fight.

T.S. took on the role of sound recordist as Tyrese was unable to make the shoot.
Call sheet for the day:

Signed artist agreements

Below are the signed artist agreements (addresses have been deleted):

Declan's agreement (Shaun)

Declan's agreement (Shaun)

Meriel's agreement (Mum)

Meriel's agreement (Mum)

Sid's agreement (Step-Dad)

Sid's agreement (Dad)

Filming-25/11/14

We scheduled in a night shoot for the 25th of November to shoot the scene with mum and dad, the bedroom scene where Declan is researching the charity shop and the beginning of the fight scene.

Call sheet for Tuesday's shoot

We planned out the shoot as followed:

6:30pm
Page 4 of script
Living room scene
Characters present mum, dad and Shaun

8:30pm
Page 5 of script
Bedroom scene
Characters present Shaun

9:30pm
Page 5 of script
Opening of fight scene

Fight Club and Pursuit of Happyness

A film that brought on inspiration for this piece was the film Fight Club directed by David Fincher.

'Jack' has a mundane boring life that consists of the same things of going to work and going home with no change or difference until he starts going to self help groups and finally creating his own through his alter ego Tyler Durden.

The idea of a man living a boring stereotypical work life was inspiration for our character Shaun who lives a lifestyle of going to work in a call centre then going home to watch the TV. This is until he finds a homeless man he walks past everyday collapsed. This similar epiphany of wanting to change things happens to Shaun that 'Jack' also feels.

Similar work setting 

While 'Jack' uses violence to get our of his everyday routine we wanted our character to have a less violent change. Instead Shaun is going to volunteer at a local charity preferably a shelter charity that helps the homeless to find places to sleep over night.

Another influence is the Pursuit of Happyness which is the story of a man and his young son who are made homeless. Chris Gardener is made homeless after losing the family money through a bad investment deal meaning him and his son are left to live on the street. They are helped however from a church that offers shelter to the homeless. We wanted to capture this idea of how it is hard for the homeless living on the street but that help is available too. Our character Shaun is going to volunteer at a charity shop that helps people in similar situations to get over the guilt he is feeling about not offering the homeless man money.

Chris and his son sleeping in the train station

First draft of 5-10 minute script

Notes from Drama Meeting- 18th November

As our actor had suddenly become unavailable and was no longer answering our calls we had to re-cast our main character of Shaun. We are now using Declan who also auditioned for the part but was unable to take it at the time due to being away. His auditions can be seen in the compilation video below as seen on the other blog post on auditions. He is the blonde actor.

I have created a timetable of everyone's availability to work so that I can construct a shooting schedule of the coming weeks:

From the timetable it seems the best available days are Wednesday and Thursday for everyone so I have highlighted them in the shooting diary and asked the group if it was okay to schedule for these days.

The aim is to have the piece shot over the next two weeks as this gives enough time for post production work.

Another side point is that TS will take over recording sound from now on as Tyrese is unavailable due to work. Tyrese however will carry on editing.

Two minute piece shoot

Day 1

The filming today took place in Tom's house and went occurring to plan. We set up the location by covering the windows to make it seem as if it was at night as written in the script by using black bin bags taped over the windows. As the scene was about Shaun watching TV we used a LED small panel light and blue gel that flickered onto a reflector onto James' face to make it look like he was watching TV.

However after looking at the footage in the edit suite afterwards it was too dark even when we edited it to be lighter in post production meaning we decided to reshoot the scene.

We also decided to cut out the aspect of Shaun smoking an e-cigarette as it made the actor James come off as uncomfortable on the screen.

Day 2

Instead of shooting the underpass scene like we originally planned we decided to do the reshoot of the TV scene at Tom's. After we took down some of the black bags and added a light to the scene we created a brighter looking scene that helped to capture the scene we wanted.

Day 3

We rescheduled the underpass shoot for today before the lunchtime rush that goes through the underpass however it was still pretty busy. We had to use Emily's friend Jack as the homeless man but I thought this worked effectively because they were the same age putting them on a similar level.

Day 4

Our final shoot took place in a teaching room in the library which we wanted to use as a call centre. Danayet and Tyrese tok on the roles of Shaun's coworkers as we wanted to make the place seem very busy and show how cut off her was from everyone. 

Some of the shots for this section didn't go as well as we had planned as we couldn't get all the angles we wanted due to not having enough extras that would fill the scene behind all the shots.

Call Sheets 2 and 3

We decided that we needed to re-shoot some of the living room and underpass scenes after seeing the rushes from day 1. We scheduled this for the 5th of November:

We finalised the 2 minute piece by filming the call centre scene where Shaun is at work on the 10th of November:

Consent Forms

As a producer I have constructed a production folder that contains forms and contact sheets for the whole project. I have compiled a sheet of all the crew's phone numbers, emails and addresses so that it is easy to get in contact with everyone. However I will not share on here due to the personal details.

Below is the the consent forms that that I have made for the actors to sign as well as the location owners agreements. The form means we can use all the footage that we collect within the boundaries of the forms meaning all the film belongs to us and Sheffield Hallam not the artist themselves.

Artist Release Form

Location Agreement Form

Call Sheet

Our first day of shoot was scheduled for the 28th of October. As a producer I constructed a call sheet for the crew and actor so they knew where and when we were meeting, the time shooting began and when it wrapped. It also contained transport arrangements.

Alongside this useful information such as the nearest hospital and phone number and address of our location.

Auditions

To find suitable actors for our piece we held auditions for actors that we contacted on StarNow. Originally we had three people auditioning for the part of Shaun and one for the homeless man however we had a lot of last minute cancellations that resulted in only two actors arriving to audition for the part of Shaun.

We decided to have them try out for the part of the homeless man as well even though we originally wanted an older actor but due to time limits we felt this was the best option we had.

Throughout their auditions we recorded them on film to show to the rest of our group who didn't attend the auditions as we felt only the producer, director and a camera operator was needed.

We made a decision to offer James Doolan the part of Shaun. A completion video of all auditions is posted below. He is the brunette actor.

We felt that James fitted the description of Shaun perfectly however at the same time might need just a bit of help with direction to get the character just as we want him to be. Nevertheless we felt that with some working with him we could create a brilliant piece in the end. 

Update for 24/10/14

After our tutorial with Chris on Wednesday we regrouped and began to discuss the project. As I hadn't heard anything from any of the call centres we decided to come up with our game plans for call centre location:

• Plan B is to use Tom's old workplace in Halifax but we felt this may hinder us and we would have to pay to transport the actors there as well as ourselves.
• Plan C is to convert one of the rooms in university to look like a call centre by using props and sound.

I personally like the idea of converting a room as it gives our art director and sound editor a chance to play around with set and sounds to create the exact look we want.

We also decided to message actors ourselves on StarNow that we felt would fit the part the parts we had on offer. 

So far we have three actors coming to audition for the part of Shaun on Monday and one for the part of the homeless man (we are still waiting on one reply from another actor we're interested in playing the homeless man).

We are going to record the auditions and decide as a group from there which actors we feel work best together and fit the part.

Catch up meeting

While away on tour I kept up to date with my group via FaceBook but once returning we had a meeting to catch me up on everything.

The roles had been decided as the following:

• Me- Producer
• Tom- Cinematographer
• Danayet- Director
• Emily- Art Director
• Tyrese- Sound Recordist and Editor
• TS- Editor

As producer I began to take on my role of organising the shoot. This began by sending out a casting call on Star Now to advertise our two roles of "Shaun" and "homeless man".

Homeless man casting call

Shaun casting call

I am currently waiting on replies from the casting calls. From there I will meet with the director and decide which candidates are the most suitable for the roles. 

After looking for suitable actors I turned my attention to locations. It had already been decided that for Shaun's house setting we would use Tom's home as it was the most suitable for the location. However for the call centre setting we felt that using an actual call centre would be the best. I have emailed a call centre in the Sheffield area called "Ant Marketing" to see if we could use their building for our setting. Again I am waiting on a reply. 

Finally I constructed a contact sheet for our group so I am able to contact all members but I will not post it on here due to the personal data it contains. 

Storyboards

Storyboard 1

Storyboard 2

Storyboard 3

Storyboard 4

Storyboard 5

Storyboard 6

2 minute piece idea

The 2 minute piece that we decided on as a group follows the daily life of Shaun. He is a man in his early 20s who works in a call centre completely desensitised from the world around him.
He watches news reports unmoved, comes to and from work without looking around and clock watches constantly.
Everyday he walks past the same homeless man completely ignoring him until one day he finds the man unconscious on the pavement.

See below for first draft of the script:

My Character Development Exercise

Name: Josh Selley

Age: 7

Want: To get adopted

Why they can’t have it: He is autistic and families don’t think they’ll be able to cope with his special needs

Josh Selley is 7 years old and is living in a children’s home in Bradford. He was taken from his parents by social services when he was 2 as they couldn’t cope with his autism and felt it would be better for him to live with people who could look after him better.

He has spent most of his life watching his friends around him being adopted but never has been himself as families don’t think they’ll be able to cope with his autism.

The script follows his inner thoughts as a family adopts his best friend. However unlike most monologue-based scripts it shows his confusing at being unable to understand why he isn’t getting adopted.

Josh is looking out of the window of the bedroom in his care home while his friend, Jack, is with his adopted parents outside filling the car with Jack’s belongings to take him to his new house.

While Josh is watching we go through the inner thoughts in his head about how he is jealous that his friend is getting adopted but understands why he isn’t. This leads to confusion over why he is the way he is and not like his friend Jack who has been adopted.

The piece will end with Josh still in the care home in his bedroom. This leaves the audience to debate how they feel towards the situation whether they feel sorry for Josh or whether they agree they wouldn’t be able to look after him either.