With filming scheduled to start at noon I had a nice little lie-in before getting up and heading to the Kenton. I was undoubtedly relieved that the weather was nice as I was hoping to film in the pub's 'deer' garden, rather than sitting inside and having to be the grumpy director who has to ask the staff to turn the music off.
Rather fortunatley there were a few people in the pub, so I had some 'extras' for this scene, but, as would continue to plague me throughout the day, I was concerned that the background life of the film would be too quiet and this would effect how clearly the concept and 'trickery' of the picture would come across.
Sean and Daniela did a great job with the first scene, I was quite pleased that they quickly decided to just accept that I had a clear image in my head of how the scene would play out, because the way they would be performing it is quite unnatural. I think I was a bit overzealous on the amount of grape juice I poured into Daniela's glass for her to down, so I let her be in control of all subsequent measures. I do seem to have a habit of making actors down rather full drinks!
It took about 45 minutes to shoot that first scene, then Rosie and Jamila turned up and we headed to the park.
Unfortunately the park wasn't that densely populated with people enjoying the nice weather. I tried to encourage takes to happen as people were passing by, but they either zipped past very quickly or politely stepped behind the camera. Curses!
Rosie had supplied her own intentionally sloppy and messy sandwich for her role, and it looked gloriously grotesque, I was very pleased that she was more than game to take a massive bite and chew in a pretty unflattering fashion!
I was then impressed by Jamila's ability to jog in reverse, but that'll make more sense when the film is finished.
Unfortunately the next location was way down in South London as I needed the assistance of a friend with a car and didn't want to make Carl drive all the way up to Hackney. However, there were railway replacment buses to negotiate and Carl was only free until 5pm.
Fortunately we got there around 4pm, but shooting the car scene proved slightly troublesome and I don't think I did a very good job of articulating or enacting how the shot should look. I think sometimes the way something works in your head and the way your body actually performs can be very different, and though, even if you stand there and run it through yourself, it may feel right, once you see it from an objective point of view it isn't what you had envisioned. Nevertheless, I decided to cheat the shot, and hopefully it'll look allright in the edit! Eek.
We were lucky, though there had been spits and spots of rain as we waited at train stations it seemed to have passed. Unfortunately the battery was now flashing 32 minutes and we didn't have a spare or a place to charge. The next scene was, worryingly, the most crucial of the entire film and the dialogue was lengthy and complex.
On the plus side I think having a short amount of time helped Sean and Jamila not worry too much about the technicalities of what they were saying and maybe eased the pressure in a strange way, but, not being able to take our time over it meant that I don't know if I've got all the shots I need and I'm not 100% certain whether the dialogue is going to work. But, fingers crossed!
Finally there was a small scene to shoot in South West London at my office. Jamila was done for the day, so headed home. Sean and I got on another railway replacement bus and headed across South London.
Suddenly though I realised a massive error on my part. I had woken up and, as I usually do of a Saturday, taken my work keys out of my pocket and put them on the bedside table. This morning I had completely forgotten to remember that I would need them to get into this final location. I, obviously, felt like a massive idiot, but fortunately both Sean and I could stay on the bus and head to London Victoria and I figured I'd either try and shoot the scene with my bedroom substituting for an office tomorrow, or depending on how the edit goes, leave it out completely.
As the bus journey continued I remembered a few more little shots here and there that I wanted to grab, that I hope I will be able to shoot when Sean and Jamila come in to do some looping on Sunday. There is also a possibility that we may have to reshoot the ending if things have gone totally awry!
Once home I tried capturing the footage from the camcorder, unfortunately, as it's not my camera, I didn't have the software to do so, and certain camcorder manufacturers don't like to use codecs that are familiar to professional software like Premiere CS4.
Luckily I managed to find a workaround, but it was slow going, and the clips were rendering out all night. Fortunately I was a bit restless, so woke up every now and then and started a new batch rendering for the edit on Sunday morning, that will hopefully be done by the time Sean and Jamila arrive to dub lines!
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