Wrapping "The Tragic Case of Gilly O'Connor"
The past two weeks have been mostly filled with the task of filming for “The Tragic Case of Gilly O’Connor”. As such, we not only continued filming the Void scenes in the studio, but we also ventured into the scenes taking place at the house and in the cursed garden.
Since a lot of preparations had been done and a lot of issues been anticipated in the preparation of this project already, this production was rather boring in terms of conflicts, issues, and/or solutions. Thus, this blog entry will be more in the style of a diary for completion’s sake than a fully-rounded analysis for academic purposes.
However, as some learning still occurred, I feel it might still be relevant to document our process.
The Rundown
During the first weeks of the last two weeks, our production was set to finish all the Void scenes that were shot in the studio. According to our initial planning, we were then set to filming all of the garden and house scenes on the weekend, which would have us finished on 1 March, if everything went accordingly.
But as life so often goes, the more detailed the plan is, the greater the deviation of it becomes. As such, we did not manage to film everything until the 1 March, but instead had to return for a couple of pick up shots a week later.
But I will get to that in a minute.
Issues in Filming the Void
Since our studio is also used for external sessions and taught lessons, we have been told right from the beginning of pre-production that we would not be able to get a single full block of filming but instead had to break it up in two blocks and fit it around some of the taught sessions in the studio. This held especially true for all the multi-cam sessions that Lvl5 had to take in the course of their module and that could not be rescheduled to any other place, but also for any open days and given talks held in there.
As such, at the end of our first block of filming (see my blog entry “Of B-RAW Tests, Some Green Screen in Outer Space, and Week 1 of Principal Photography”), we not only had to take the most important equipment with us and de-rig my lighting setup, but we also had to take up and store the flooring which we required in order to facilitate the effect for the reflective floor in post. However, since we had a lot of equipment and props booked out, we also agreed with our technician to be able to store some of them in the corner of the studio until we were to re-commence filming in the Void again.
This proved to become an issue when we returned half a week later to pick up filming again, as some of the equipment that we had taken out and that was not only booked under our name, but also stored away for us, had been taken out by other students without passing it by the stores, thus resulting in a lack of lighting and support equipment.
Solving the Issue
However, since my lighting plan was delicate and highly relying on consistency, we needed to obtain these lights as quickly as possible. As such, the equipment that had been taken out without permission had to be retrieved and reset to the previous settings. This entire ordeal – while being fixed and dealt with quicker than I thought it would be – resulted in a slight delay of our shooting schedule of about an hour.
However, here it once more proved helpful to have as detailed a lighting plan as possible, since my rigid lighting plans, updated lighting settings, and exposure values allowed me to quickly restore the lighting to its previous state despite having had many people in the studio in the meantime. It furthermore helped with the lighting on the rig as these settings had naturally changed during the time where other groups had been in.
After that initial hick-up, we then proceeded onto filming the scenes in the Void, which proved to pose another challenge.
The Issue of Actor Availability and Continuity
Whilst the idea of having on-site actors at university and sourcing them for our projects is lovely to entertain, the reality of its application is different. Differences in our modules and curriculae made it utterly difficult to get certain actors for the required times and to also guarantee that we would have said actors on the times initially agreed upon. As such, we were often surprised by an announcement that we could not work with an actor on a particular date as they were suddenly scheduled for a taught session or examination.
Since we were confronted with the choice of either losing our main lead only a few days before principal photography or optimising our shooting schedule to fit everything in, we naturally went for the second option.
This resulted in us having to change around the shooting schedule in order to fit our actress’s schedule, but created problems on a different level, such as the higher probability of continuity issues. This reduced availability furthermore posed issues regarding the amount of shots that we wanted to cover. Since we originally had much more time with our lead actress scheduled, our storyboard was naturally bigger and accounting for more shots as well as a bigger variety of them. At an average, we were looking at 18 shots per day, which was a manageable amount for our workflow and us.
My Solution to This Issue
However, with the shortened schedule now, we were looking at a base minimum of 27 shots per day that would go up to 45 shots on the busy days where we could have our lead actress. Since I only ever experienced one professional shoot that covered about 40 shots (and all of the crew were industry professionals with more than 12 years of experience each), I immediately knew that this endeavour was doomed to fail. Thus, I sat down with our director, ran the numbers by her, and proposed that we cut the shots of which we knew we would have plenty of coverage already.
Whilst I kept maintaining that we should cut some of the envisioned shots or at least merge them with others to account more for coverage, especially regarding the time restrictions at hand, our director had different opinions about the matter and refused to cut shots. This was sometimes frustrating as it would mean to have some action covered in up to 7 or 9 different angles, even though we would have only had time for a maximum of 4 to 5 angles (if that), depending on the significance of the scene to the story itself.
As such, after running it by our director repeatedly, Hannah and I often had to sit down and start cutting and/or merging shots together on another round. Since Hannah was our camera operator, I included her in the process to ensure that my ideas of merging the shots were actually doable for her and not only wishful thinking on my part in an attempt to make the schedule more manageable.
My Learning
However our cutting down of shots, and the subsequent picking up of different scenes – especially the large ones – required all three of us to repeatedly go over the storyboard and shot list during production to ensure that we have enough coverage and did not miss out on important shots for the edit.
This was especially important since this project was filmed alongside another FMP project, and our editor was also required to be on set as well as edit the other FMP, thus refraining him from being able to edit our project whilst we were filming. However, this was also a time-consuming endeavour, which – in hindsight – I would refrain from as it repeatedly took us out of the flow.
Lastly, since Hannah wanted to be marked on her role as a camera operator, and thus required more documentation on her part, we collectively decided that she would take care of the shot list for “The Tragic Case of Gilly O’Connor”. This not only helped her gaining a deeper understanding of the storyboard that Lynley and I originally conceived and its requirements, but also served as a good way for her to set up a manageable shot order for her.
Issues in Filming the Garden – Hold for Exposure
Moving on to filming the scenes surrounding the house and garden, we encountered problems of a different kind – namely weather and exposure.
These are naturally no new issues to be had as filming outdoors always has its perks and issues. Whilst continuity is one of the major issues – as you, again, can read up in my blog entry “Of Emerald Lake and Job Offers” surrounding our shoot of Emerald Lake – the obtainment of beautiful shots is another.
As such, it was obvious right from the start – and also almost dictated by the genre of the short film itself – to not only find a time for filming in consistent weather, but also for filming in darker, more moody (read: cloudy) weather. Looking at the weather forecast – which predicted clouds and occasional drizzle – this was easily determined by our producer Chloe and luckily coinciding with the availability of our location. Thus, we set out filming the relevant scenes by getting up at 5am and arriving on location at 7am.
However, despite the weather forecast, filming in the garden took longer than expected due to exposure changes, which not only changed the contrast ratio of the overall image making it harder to fit in during post, but also changed the presence of shadows in the background, thus resulting in what would have become major continuity issues. This became even worse on Sunday afternoon as the sun started coming out, creating an entirely different feel and mood.
Our Solutions
Since the weather is admittedly the only factor that humans cannot control, our solutions to this issue were rather limited by nature. Due to the sun coming out, and the subsequent change in exposure (and thus in contrast), I often had to call for a hold for exposure and wait out the situation.
Since filming outside always comes with slight changes in exposure – and our project heavily relied on the mood and thus the right colour grade – I made it a habit of continually metering the exposure levels and enter the exposure values on the slate; with the exception of shots that were too difficult to get for Hannah, either because of height issues (on a tripod) or duration issues (working on a Gimbal). This was especially important for the gimbal shots as they were capable of quickly wearing us down unless you were used to working with a gimbal constantly.
And in order to cut down on the amount of time lost, and whilst Hannah was our camera operator, I made it a habit to meter the light as shortly before taking a shot as possible to ensure that we would always have the most correct exposure. This I did to ensure that our editor and colourist would always have the right exposures to work with and to give them a ballpark for what exposure value would correspond with what settings within their colour correction and colour grade.
Although we managed to wrap all the scenes that required actors from outside our own university, it became clear during the course of Sunday that we, despite only ever needing a few more shots to cover, had to wrap for the day and pick up the remaining few shots on the weekend after.
After rescheduling to the following weekend however, we finally managed to get everything in the can and finally wrap “The Tragic Case of Gilly O’Connor”. Whilst it was an interesting experience to light for a psychological thriller, it was not a genre I ended up liking massively as it limits you greatly in the lighting design to be used.
Anyways, since this is only one of my two FMP projects done – and there are only ever two weeks of preparation left before we move into principal photography for “The Pillars of Creation”, I better start preparing for a new exciting genre to film – namely Science Fiction!
References:
Hartle, S. (2020) Of B-RAW Tests, Some Green Screen in Outer Space, and Week 1 of Principal Photography. [online] Available at: https://sveahartle.wixsite.com/sveaexmachina/single-post/2020/02/23/Of-B-RAW-Tests-and-The-First-Week-of-Principal-Photography [Accessed on 7 March 2020].
Hartle, S. (2019) Of Emerald Lake and Job Offers. [online] Available at: https://sveahartle.wixsite.com/sveaexmachina/single-post/2019/10/13/Of-Emerald-Lake-and-Job-Offers [Accessed on 7 March 2020].