Getting on with it!

Getting on with it

As much as I can prepare for this film , I can have all the risk assessments in place, call sheets, equipment logs etc, It was important to just start shooting. I thought the best course of action would be to shoot at Lanjore farm first. On the 11th of March I knew that the weather was looking good, everyone who I wanted to be in the film was more or less available to help.

I took a Z1 camera and a zoom recorder and a M60 mic down to the farm as well as a pint of fake blood, which bore the label " Vampire Blood " and then stated on the back the ironic instruction of    " do not get near eyes, mouth or face ".  I didn't really have anything scripted for this particular evening of shooting as most of the footage would simply be moments of action that were to make up a fake  trailer and some other footage to be  woven into the interview sequences.

So this could be considered an exercise in improvisation, I think, in some ways, this helped these actors , or non-actors, get involved in the creative process at some level. Suggestions were passed around and although I voiced my concerns regarding the scenes and  how I wanted them to play out,  I was more than happy to let the actors come up with their own lines and to dictate their own performances.

I think it made for a relaxing and enjoyable experience, being able to treat the situation with a sense of fun allowed them to feel comfortable and through feeling comfortable, I think they were more willing to try different things.

Sometimes it's hard to remember, that you are they only person that really has any idea of how the film may turn out or at least, how you'd like it to come across to other people. The people who had kindly given their time to be in my film are all non-actors and people with little to no knowledge about film production or film-making, so they're never quite sure whether or not they're going to look  ridiculous. I really wanted them to be at ease and happy, I tried to utilise their time as swiftly as possible, so they wouldn't be kept away from their own commitments. I made sure that the set ups were quick and simple, after all I was trying to emulate the spontaneity of people like Sam Raimi  and John Carpenter, so It was important to me , to not make things overtly staged or technical, I purposefully used as many natural light sources as possible and the gain settings on the camera as well as the filters to try and give the footage an aged and amateurish look.

All in all, I had managed to get all the shots I wanted within a relatively short shooting window of 3.30pm to 8.30 pm and then It was a simple task of taking that footage home, capturing it and preparing for the next day of shooting.