The filming process day 1 (part 1)

Date: Wednesday 22nd November 2017
Time: 11:00am-11:30am
Moments filmed: Panic
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (Camera/director), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer/Mya Brown)
Props: None
Equipment: Camera, Tripod

The shot that we decided to start with would be the panic scene, seeing as it was one of the more complicated shots to put together due to the fact that we needed to work out how exactly we could represent somebody visibly panicking. Finding a location was not too difficult as any standard road/street would do - as long as we did not have any cars coming along the road during the shot because we wanted to make it clear that Mya was freaking out when she heard an ambulance sound (that we could edit in later) as opposed to the car driving past. Also, as it is a trailer that we are working on putting together, we needed to make sure that this moment does not drag on too long so that we have time to fit everything in the 2-3 minute sequence of events, so working out how far away Mya needed to be as well as how far she needed to walk before freaking out was another consideration that needed to be made. In terms of working out how to make Mya look like she was panicking we decided to go with shaking hands, as this got through what we were trying to suggst. This is also where we made a crucial change to this scene: as opposed to what we were going to do originally - to do this as two shots cutting from the initial reaction to a shot of Mya's hand shaking - we decided that once Mya reacts we should have the camera zoom in on her hand so that it is more obvious whose hand it is that is shaking.

One of the biggest learns here was that of the weather, with it being in the later end of the year the wind (and also the rain) have the potential to cause problems both with communication and with actual recording if the dialogue should end up being distorted.

Putting the shot together in the end took us about half an hour, partly because it took a little while for us to work out the optimum walking distance and representation of a panicked state of mind, and partly in waiting for the road to be clear.