DAY
1
SCENES:
24,
25, 27, 28
Arrived at the media factory on time which was a
great start to the day. I then started the morning routine with Joni which
consists of the following:
- Sorting out travel requirements for crew and cast.
- Making sure crew from all departments have working
kit.
- Going through Breakdown sheets and making sure everything
needed for the shoot is with us.
- Ticking off equipment and sending it downstairs to
the bus.
- Making sure everyone is present and on time; call
those who are not.
- Check over 209 for anything we have missed.
- Set off.
Arrived at ferrari's. Crew knew what to do as I had
spoken to them about onset etiquette and the routine the day before. I then
went to find Susan the owner to let her know we had arrived and what time we
expected to wrap. Went to main hall to check everyone had started setting up in
order. It was a slow start. I think the main reason was that majority of crew
were working somewhere they had never been before. Also hair, makeup and
costume took a lot longer than I thought it would - I made a note to increase
the time for this for the rest of the shoot days.
Still we didn't fall far behind schedule. Scene 24
was tricky. Peter tried to do a Track/pan shot with the dolly which took a few
takes. I had to tell him to move on as we were running out of time fast. As
time went on, we kind of got the hang of things and started working a little
faster.
One thing I think I did well today was giving out
clear instructions and making sure everyone knew what was going on. I did feel
slightly overwhelmed by the number of people on set but quickly got used to
this.
I think I could have been a bit more active today. I
was sat down for quite a bit of time. It would be better if I was constantly up
near the action so I could be called easily if something goes wrong.
Overall it was a decent start to the shoot. I'm sure
things can only get better.
DAY
2 - 21.02.13
SCENES:
8,
Dry run - 33,39
I was on time again today. We started with the usual
morning routine.
Arrived at the Location on time and once again got
straight to it. As noted from yesterday - I gave a little extra time for hair,
makeup and costume and it paid off. We managed to start on time. The shoot went
by quite quickly and we even managed to add a new shot in and wrap on time.
The dry run was a big success. It gave us a chance
to practice some very difficult tracking shots. So now I can cut off some time
when we come to shoot those scenes as everything has already been rehearsed.
I've noticed a few things after the 2nd shoot day.
1) Crew members who are not needed on set seem to
just lounge around doing nothing. I need o find a way to deal this.
2) Equipment
boxes lying around untidily - Packed them to the side myself, during de - brief
at the end of the day I told the crew they need to keep the set clean and tidy.
Every department is responsible for their own equipment - everyone seems to
agree.
I am very proud of the way I behaved today. I had
been told yesterday that the Actor playing Jonno (Ali) had made a comment about
me not been a good first AD. I was in tears after hearing, I was actually devastated.
I thought I had found something I was actually good at and he destroyed my
confidence with just a few words. I'm hate crying in front of people, it makes
me feel very vulnerable. Which of course ended up making me feel worse. After
speaking to Chris and Peter who both assured me that I'm not a bad AD, I felt a
lot better.
I took Chris' word for it because I know he wouldn't
lie. He would have told me I was a shit AD but in a nice way. He also gave me
an important tip; that I could have been on my feet a bit more during the first
day. Of course I took this on board. YOU WILL NEVER SEE ME SITTING DOWN DURING
THE SHOOT AGAIN - unless of course its lunch.
Back to the point - despite being insulted, I kept
cool. When I saw Ali this morning I gave my largest and brightest smile. I even
put in a little extra effort by making sure he was always catered for. I also
made SURE we started and finished on time. I'd like to know what he thinks now
! I am very satisfied with the way I behaved. It's usually hard for me to
control my emotions but I realised what was at stake and kept myself in check.
Overall it was a good day. Morale was down because we had to cancel
yesterday's shoot but after today everyone seems back on top again. I'm not
going to let 1 cancelled shoot and an egotistical actor bring me down.
"I'M THE FIRST ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ON A FEATURE
FILM !"
DAY
3 - 25.02.13
SCENES:
26,
38, 39, 49, 63
Was 1 or 2 minutes late today. It was a struggle to
get up. After our arrival we started with the usual morning routine.
Back at Ferrari's today. I kind of missed the place.
As usual I went to find Susan or Luisa (her daughter). I think it's good to get
into a routine, Life is so much easier when your body knows what it's doing
even when the mind isn't paying attention.
We started slightly late today but that wasn't a
problem because we soon picked up the pace. THE BBC came and messed with my
entire schedule which I was not happy with. Thank goodness I had scheduled a
little extra time to accommodate for the visit. Everyone seemed on point and they said they were quite impressed by how well we work. This was definitely a morale boost for the crew. As annoyed as I was with the BBC I'm hoping to see myself on TV for just a second. Also their trip meant we had to start earlier which allowed me to schedule in 2 extra scenes.
Today was good because we weren't stuck in the hall.
We shot a few scenes in the upstairs corridors and cloakroom.
Spoke to crew members who were sitting around and
told them to avoid doing that. My exact words were "There is always
something to help out with". It looks really bad when a handful of us are
on set working our asses off and the rest are sitting around relaxing and
eating. I also told them if they find themselves with nothing to do, they
should come and find me as I always have a million things going on and need all
the help I can get.
Overall it was a nice uplifting day. We managed to
get everything done and on time as usual which is always great.
DAY
4 - 26.02.13
SCENES:
31,
33
Joni is ill today so I have told him to stay off set
in case he infects actors. However I begged him to drive Sara aka Tanya to
ferrari's; which he did.
Arrived at the MF and went through the routine as
usual.
Today was a very easy day because we shot one of the
scenes which we dry ran. Both cast and crew knew exactly what they doing so we
got through it very quickly. I think a lot of the crew are still buzzing from
the BBC visit yesterday. Regardless I still had a few sing songs with some crew
members to boost morale.
The cast members have been calling and texting me
about shoot days. With all I have to deal with I don't want them on my back as well.
On set cast can be my responsibility but off it I think Charlotte should be the
one dealing with them.
DAY
5 - 27.02.13
SCENES:
30, 52, 59
The morning was very manic today. Both crews had the
same call time which was irritating but unavoidable. I never want this to
happen again. We had no idea where some of our equipment was. We had unit 1
taking equipment which didn't belong to them or would have benefited us more. I
had to make a few negotiations. For example, they had taken the largest arri
light even though we were shooting in a hall and they in a bedroom. I spoke to
Anthony and got the arri back, it made sense that we should have it. Also the
sound recordists from unit 1 took both sets of radio mics even though they knew
we were also shooting today and had a lot more cast members than them. In the
end, had to send my sound babies to stores to get some more out.
It was another generally good shoot day. By now I'd
like to think I've dealt with the majority of 'on-set' problems or issues as none came up
today.
I'd like to give a special mention to runner Matt who
has been excellent on set. He's always eager to help and I'm always happy to
give him some work to. Seeing him so excited makes me happy. I wish I was that
excited when I ran for Wraith. I've been trying to get the runners involved as
much as possible by finding things for them to do. Want to avoid boring them.
"Joni has given me his cold."
DAY
6 - 04.03.13
SCENES: 66, 70
The bus was late today which put us behind a bit.
However as soon as we got on set we began to set up pretty quickly and ended up
getting back on track.
There was an issue with a Panther Tripod being left
outside the media factory. I did not see this and I'm kind of glad I didn't
else I would have gotten quite angry. I'm constantly telling the crew that they
need to look after the kit. It's all we have and it's very expensive. Everyone
in unit 2 knows that they are in charge of the equipment they take down. I've
said it about a hundred time. I'm very disappointed in whoever brought it down
and left it there. At the debrief tonight I'll have to mention it but I won't
be calling anyone out. I'll just reiterate how important the equipment is.
Today the crew and a few cast members met actress
Katie aka Aggy for the first time. She seems very nice and her acting is quite
good. It was a bit of a struggle getting her away from unit 1. I had to
schedule all her scenes into 5 days and then schedule Richard's aka Sam's scene
around her. While the script was being split it should have been noted down
that both units would share Aggy equally. Although she's in more unit 1 scenes,
she is still in quite a few of ours.
Despite the late start, it was still an ok shoot
day. We could have worked a little faster but I won't complain because we still
finished on time.
Tonight while double checking tomorrow's schedule
with Joni it was revealed that the taxis to transport us to tomorrow's shoot
had been booked for the wrong day. The minibus is unavailable all day tomorrow.
Joni and I spent the majority of the night ringing
taxi companies to try and sort something out. There was no way I was going to
cancel such an important shoot day. In the end we managed to sort something
out.
Thank goodness I always double check. If I hadn't,
we would have turned up at the MF with no transport while the majority of taxis
in Preston would have been booked throughout the morning.
DAY
7 - 05.03.13
SCENES:
58,
68
I had to push back call times and the whole schedule
back by an hour as the taxis were only available after 9 due to the school run.
Only 3 people were in one taxi bus on the way to Ferrari's so I asked Joni to
call the taxi company and switch to a normal cab for the journey home to save
us some money.
The set back cost us quite a bit of time and I ended up having to cut shots to save some time. Peter had no issue with this and even helped me with the task. We've developed a very comfortable Director/AD relationship and seem to work quite well together. We can now practically have conversations on set with no dialogue needed what so ever.
DAY
8 - 07.03.13
SCENES:
-
I had to cancel this morning's shoot as our
bridesmaid 1 has dropped out yet again. However we still went ahead with the
afternoon shoot.
We shot Myrtle's scene's on the laptop in the CSI house.
It didn't feel like a proper shoot because we
started late in the day and the whole thing took less than an hour. I think the
majority of the crew were happy to have half the day off.
DAY
9 - 10.02.13
SCENES: 19, 21
Today was our first weekend shoot and as usual
things started going wrong from the start. Our actor Richard was late for his
call time so I called him to find out where he was. Turns out he was in some
far away city up north, the name of which I cannot remember. I did not to
cancel the shoot date because there was just no other day I could schedule it
on. Besides, I'm now quite sick and tired of having to change the schedule for
actors. Richard agreed to come down as soon as he could and I went off to break
the news to everyone.
It would take a good 2 hours for him to arrive which
created more problems; the rest of the cast had already arrived so it meant
they had to wait around. I apologised for the inconvenience and ask them kindly
to wait. 1 or 2 crew members started to complain which was unneeded seeing how
messed up everything was already. I told people they could go and get food or
go and stretch their legs but they had to be back by 5.30pm as Richard was due
to arrive at 6.
Because the sun would have gone done entirely by the
time Richard arrived, I went into town with a few crew members to see if any of
the surrounding shops would allow us to use their electricity. Of course this
was unsuccessful. The area would be too dark to shoot in after 6pm with no
lighting so I made the decision to change the location last minute. I got in
contact with Peter and asked him to find
suitable locations around the media factory where we would shoot as it was the
only place we could use as a power source. We managed to find a location right
outside the media factory which was perfect for both scenes.
It was freezing outside by the time Richard arrived
and it even started snowing a little at some point. I refused to let that stop
the shoot. Instead, I went to steal a kettle and starting making hot drinks.
"No
way was I going to cancel the shoot"
I am quite happy with the decisions I made today. If
I had cancelled the shoot, I would have had to push it back to after Easter as
Richard was unavailable any other day. I've now gotten used to the fact that
things like this are bound to happen and as the First Ad it's my job to make
changes and decisions quickly and also STICK to them.
DAY
10 - 11.03.13
SCENES:
71
Today, we had the most cast members we've ever had
on set. There were a lot of people. Thank Goodness I'd managed to get a green
room next door and there would have been nowhere to put them.
A few crew members also starred in the scene which
meant I had to make a few changes. Peter was a wedding guest, which meant I had
to direct for a while (well not really, I just got to say action, nothing
fancy).
It was an extremely good shoot. I had managed to get
permission from Ferrari's to use their chair covers and ribbons and it make the
whole scene come together. I have no idea what we would have used otherwise as
the production design department had bought very little props and decorations
for the wedding. This really angered me because a good deal of the budget
should have been spent on cheap wedding decorations. We had about 10 balloons
and some confetti and that was it. For a film that's called 'The Wedding', getting such a small amount of decorations was
quite inadequate of the production design team.
The shoot went by quite quickly and the atmosphere
on set was amazing. Richard and Katie have a weird chemistry between the two of
them and watching them play Sam and Aggy is quite entertaining.
DAY
11 - 12.03.13
SCENES:
69
Today was the worst day so far of the entire shoot
for me. I'm used to things going wrong by now but today was just ridiculous.
Scene 69 is basically the most important scene in the script because it's the
climax so we really couldn't afford to make any mistakes.
I was told by Luisa yesterday that a conference was
due to take place in the main hall today. I clearly told her that we would not
be using the main hall but the registry room next door and she said that was
ok. However when we arrived, I was told we could no longer use the room as they
were using it the lunch area for the people attending the conference. so there
goes our location. We could have shot outside but it had snowed the day before
and patches were still on the ground. So there goes the back up plan.
And then, while I'm trying to figure out what to do
next I get told that the costume for the lead character in the scene has been
left at the MF. I became very grumpy after that and when I'm annoyed or angry, I
do not think rationally. Thankfully Wobs managed to find a church location not
too far from Ferrari's. Despite this good news, I was still a little annoyed
because we had to go back and get the costume. I was quite snappy and still
tried to get things going but I knew I wasn't doing well.
When we arrived at the new location an incident
happened which caused my mood to go from irritated to extremely angry. I knew I
couldn't work in such a state and rather than stress everyone else out with my
anger, I decided to put Joni in charge and go and get the costume as nothing
could be shot without it anyway. This gave me plenty of time to cool off and I returned
to set feeling much better.
Once we started, the first few shots were very
quick. Then we reached the main part of the scene and it all started falling to
pieces. It quickly became obvious that Richard had not learnt his lines for
that scene. He kept asking for line ques in the middle of sentences which meant
that hardly any of the footage would be useful. When we wrapped I had a strong
feeling we would have to re- shoot that scene.
DAY
12 - 13.03.13
SCENES:
24,
25, 27, 72, 73, 74, 75
Today was a struggle. That is all I can say. Due to
location and cast availability, I had to schedule all those scenes into one
day. When I was making the schedule I noted down that this would be impossible
to carry out in reality. However I decided to see how much we could get done.
The day started well with re-shoots. We had to
re-shoot scenes from the first day as there were a few problems with sound and
the editors had complained about shot sizes. These went by quite quick and then
we started to prepare for the last scenes of the film.
I won't say much about this day because I don't like
to think about it but it was an extremely long one. There were times when I felt
like walking off set and going home to take a nap but of course I stayed.
I struggled with a lot of things today…as the shoot
draws to an end I feel like I'm losing it. I did nothing about crew morale even
though it was the day when people needed it most. I physically and mentally
couldn't do it. I felt absolutely drained and it showed. I'm very disappointed
in myself for behaving like this, that is not what a good first ad does. I
should I tossed my own feelings to the side and just done my job, but that
sounds a lot easier to say than it is to actually do.
I also had a number of cast members sat around doing
nothing for a long period of time. This was through no fault of my own thank
goodness. I had already made enough mistakes. It was because Unit 1 were over
an hour late getting Sam and Aggy to us. I won't delve into this issue because I'll
end up writing pages about it.
In the end despite everyone feeling down and tired
it was still our most efficient shoot. At some point, we were shooting and
moving lights at the same time. This kind of entertained everyone and morale
came back for the last few hours as we pushed to get to get everything shot.
We were supposed to wrap at 10pm but by the time it
came we were on the last scene and needed about 20 - 30mins to finish. Susan
came in at about 10.10 and told us we had to leave. I tried to go and speak her
to explain the situation but she refused to listen to me and even Gary aka
Terry. I went back into the hall and made the decision that half the crew would
start packing up quietly while the other half finished off the scene as quickly
as possible.
5mins later Susan's husband came in, told us to get
out and refused to leave until we did. Wobs basically had to beg him in order
for us to quickly rush the ending. I was absolutely devastated. I knew
Ferrari's wouldn't let us back after this and it felt like the entire shoot had
been a waste seeing as we'd blown the ending. Of course that was irrational
Rachel thinking and I soon calmed down. I
decided to wait for the editors' judgement before making any decisions.
DAY
13 - 14.03.13
SCENES:
6,
17
Today was a well deserved rest from yesterday's near
catastrophe. I made the call time a little later than usual so the crew could
rest a while. Not all crew members were present because of lack of transport.
Scene 6 was a
breeze with only 3 shots and we wrapped on time.
There was a problem when we arrived at revolution to
film with the manager saying that Joni had never confirmed the date or made a
booking, but this got sorted out soon enough and we managed to shoot.
Scene 17 also took very little and there were no
problems with the shoot. A nice relaxing easy day
DAY
14 - 18.03.13
SCENES:
15
I was quite ill today, so spent a good deal of the
shoot inside feeling sorry for myself while sending out instructions. I went
back and forth a lot which probably made me more ill. I should have stayed
inside but I'm like a mother who doesn't like to leave her children alone too
often.
I just remembered there was an incident on one of
the earlier shoot days where Tony told me that they could still function
without me on set. Tony and I are close friends so I didn't find this insulting
at all. Instead I decided to test the theory and left the set to go and take a
break as it was an easy shoot. Less than 30mins later Webster and Peter came out
and told me to come back in because they hadn't been able to shoot anything
since I left. It's good to know I'm needed. That was one of the reasons I went
for the role.
"I
guess I didn't get much attention as a child"
DAY
16 - 11.04.13
SCENES:
68b,
69
As predicted, we indeed ha to reshoot 69. However
the entire cast needed were not all available on the same day we had to
compromise. We ended up shooting just the main dialogue part.
I had an incident with a cast member before I went
off to the shoot. Johnny aka Paul practically refused to get in the car until
he had his expenses paid back. It took over 10mins to get him to agree to come
to the shoot. I felt like some sort of negotiator from a film.
It was a late start to the day and also very rushed
as cast member had other commitments in the evening. However we managed to get
all we needed done. I'm happy to have finally finished.
