Production Day 2: And So We Begin...Again

The project has just completed its second day of filming, and the errors made during the first day of principal photography, were recognised and not repeated again.

After viewing the footage we had shot for the first day, I realised we had made some catastrophic mistakes with how we shot most of our scenes. To use a particular example, there is a sequence of the character walking down a footpath at the beginning of the narrative - which required the camera to be positioned in a multitude of areas to capture a range of different camera angles. Reviewing the footage, I noticed that it would not have been able to be cut this sequence - and others - together convincingly because there had been a lack of care of filming without the editing room in mind. 

The plan for the second day was to record the remaining 50% of the narrative and wrap up production, but considering a large portion of  footage for day one would be unusable, meeting up at the location that was to begin the second and final sequence of the narrative, we discussed the reality of the situation of continuing ahead without remedying the fundamental errors we made in filming on the first day, and thankfully, we all agreed on returning back to Vauxhall to re-shoot most of the footage again - with the plan of returning back to where we had started the day, the Southbank, to look around the area for ideal locations to film the rest of the narrative in. 

Having arrived at Vauxhall, there was hardly a repeat of the previous day where most of it was spent discussing what we were going to film. This time, we knew what we were going to film as we had gone through our sinned footage and set about rectifying the errors of misjudgment, that hindsight could only have foretold. 

We decided to air on the safe side of caution, by re-shooting almost everything that was shot on the first day, as a precautionary measure in order to prevent returning to the scene of the crime again, as the plan for the second day was to finish filming, not re-shooting scenes we thought we had got already.

Power of hindsight: filming the first day again 

We filmed the character from interacting on his phone, to walking down the street, crossing the road and falling flat down on the pavement and breaking his phone, caused by his devotion to continually overindulging in his phone even while walking. These particular sequences that were filmed previously, when compared to the same sequences filmed again, were a massive improvement and will now be easy to splice together in the edit than it would have been before, having reviewed the filmed footage after we finished for the day. 

Before that happened however, me and Gendrick made our way back to Southwark station, which is a few minutes walk from the Southbank, where the narrative is planned to finish at, to choose locations for the next day of filming. We looked at the area around the train station, as the narrative will begin from this point - and end up at the Southbank. 

We saw an information board outside the station and a phone box across the street, which we will use when we film for real. We then walked over to the Southbank, keeping an eye out for possible locations to use on the way there. A few minutes later, our walk was ended in front of the Tate Modern by the sheer beauty of the river flowing across from it. We mutually agreed that the narrative will end here. We then made our way back to the station and parted ways - having learnt from the failures we have incurred so far since beginning production. 

The next time, we'll be more prepared and ready than we have ever been to ensure there isn't a repeat of the mistakes that we have made so far. Now having made them, we will be more aware of the consequences in imitating the acts of our former selves.  

Ceysun Dixon (KU ID: K1326851)