Day 1
We were very nervous going into the first day of filming despite having done lots of planning and paper work to assist us on the day. I pre-printed reports, schedules and risk assessments for the day as well as bringing small essential pieces of equipment to set such as a first aid kit, scissors, pens and tape.
Our first and biggest challenge of the day was when the owner turned up an hour late to the café therefore putting us behind schedule before we had even started, I felt that the best way for us to overcome this situation was to continue setting us as normal when we were let in and for me to quickly amend the schedule to accommodate for the new timings that we had.
As we began to film stress levels were already high from the issues in the morning therefore the crew were initially finding it difficult to communicate efficiently in order to get the shots that we needed to do done. We took a moment to calm down and discuss what we needed to change and as soon as we got into the rhythm of changing set ups and directing the actors the mood became much calmer.
Being the 1st AD on set it was my responsibility to keep track of how much we had to do and what departments could be doing to put us in the best position to finish on time so that we had all of the coverage we needed by the end of the shoot. I found this was definitely a challenge as many of the crew had not familiarized themselves completely with the order we were doing the shots in which became especially confusing as we were covering 2 very similar scenes on the first day.
Overall we managed to get through the majority of the shots that we wanted this day however I felt there was definitely some discussions we needed to have as a group about how we could better prepare for the next shooting day. Therefore we had a debrief as a group when the day had finished about changes we could make to the schedule for better use of time and how we could improve communication as a group to maintain low levels of stress on set and help to make the on-set environment as comfortable for the actors as we could make it.
Day 2
The night before our second shooting day I received a message from the owner of the café that we would have to start an hour later than originally planned. Although this was a huge setback I felt comfortable that we could potentially change the schedule to fit around it. I called the cinematographer and we spent a couple of hours discussing which shots we could cut and which we could cut down which allowed the schedule to fit with the new plan.
When we arrived on set the next day our start to the day was far smoother than the first two days as we were communicating more efficiently. Furthermore we had fixed another huge issue that we had on the first day which was the sound recording being made difficult because the outside traffic could be hear really loudly from inside the cafe.
I also noticed that when I was not making the creative department as aware of times they were far less stressed therefore I started asking the crew "how long do you need to set up for this shot" as opposed to "you are 10 minutes behind and need to set up for this shot quickly". This really taught me a lot about being an AD and how important it is to adapt to an extent whilst also asking the creative department to make some compromises.
I feel that the biggest challenge on the second day was actually ensuring that the coverage we had differed enough from the first day to show that they are different scenes as we found that a lot of the shots looked very similar. We therefore were having effective discussions as a group of how we could cover the final scenes to tell the story the most effectively.
Finally I felt that on this day the crew had come much better prepared to set making sure they had looked over the schedule in detail and planning all of our individual strategies for how we would complete the tasks that we would need. For example sound knew that because the lavs would be really important for improving the quality of sound that she needed to set them up as soon as we got on set.
Overall the experience on set for our second day was made far easier than the first day by our choices to adapt to each others differing communication styles and a better sense of planning for when we got on set.
Day 3
The final day of filming, we knew would be the most simple as we had far less shots to cover and it was in a group members flat therefore the time constraints had far less pressure on them. We began the day by talking through how we would film the shots and setting up the room to look dark and gloomy.
As we began to film there happened to be building work that started therefore we needed to make adjustments for sound. This meant I changed the schedule slightly to film the outside scenes where sound was not as important. Once we had then finished the outside scenes we immediately went back inside as the building noise had stopped and ended up wrapping earlier than anticipated.
After we finished filming this day we had a group meeting/debrief to discuss what had gone well on set and what could've been better. We agreed how important it was to have a plan B when it came to many aspects of filming including location, cast and scheduling. I feel this was one of the biggest lessons I learnt from producing this project as there were elements that affected filming that we never could have previously anticipated therefore improvisation is a huge advantage when it comes to planning a film.
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