During the course between planning and shooting our thriller, we encountered a series of problems which we had to overcome, some of these were problems which we failed to foresee when filming, and others were unexpected which could not have been helped.
Our first problem which we encountered was the cancellation of one of our chosen locations, the Playhouse Theatre changing room. This was an unexpected problem which we were given the evening before we had planned to shoot. This disrupted our entire filming schedule, which delayed us for a few days until we were able to think of another location suitable for our thriller.Along with these disruptions to our shooting schedule, heavy snow and bad weather resulted in our shooting being further delayed, as we did not wish to shoot during the snow over fears of continuity if any scenes had to later be re-shot.
The second problem which we encountered, was the difficulty of finding time to shoot our thriller, as the three members of our group all had fairly full timetables, as well as commitments outside of school which severely limited the time in which we could shoot. As well as this, the friend we asked to play the role of Ray went to a different school whereby he had to stay later to work, on the available times we had to film, meaning we had limited time to shoot the scenes which included Ray. As a result of this, we had to choose to shoot when we were able to, rather than necessarily when we would have liked to, for example, the scenes with Ray were shot during the afternoon when it was almost still broad daylight. This did not comply with our initial idea of wanting to shoot in the evening, when it would therefore seem more dark and mysterious. However, as the film is intended to be shown in black and white, we hoped that the brightness of the day time would not be so obvious, and therefore not such a dilemma. As well as this, we experimented in the evening with filming, and found that when we planned to shoot, for the correct night time atmosphere, was in fact too dark, and the camera could not detect all of the actors and general mis-en-scene of the environment. In addition, the camera quality was lessened as it came out grainy, and therefore shooting during the day actually worked out better.
Our main problem which we faced when shooting, was the popularity of the locations, which did not only make shooting physically more challenging, but it also meant that trying to maintain the vintage aesthetics was even more so. For our house location outside, it was inconveniently placed on a busy road, which was also a well used bus route, and directly opposite a high school and sixth form, which coincidently finished just as we had begun to film meaning that there was a continuous stream of people in the background of the shot which again interrupted our filming. In retrospect, we should have thought about these aspects when planning to shoot on this location, but as it did not actually implement our shooting too much as we did not need many shots, nor did we need diegetic sounds so the clips could be muted, it was not a major concern.
However, our other location, Norwich City Hall, was although aesthetically perfect for our thriller, it was a disaster to film at, due to the time in which we filmed, and its key city centre location meant that trying to get any shots un-disturbed, was almost impossible, with pedestrians, cars, and a taxi rank passing through which obviously gave away the time era (which was probably our biggest concern whilst shooting) and as we needed long wide shots to establish location here, it was very difficult to get any clear frames and we were therefore limited with regards to material when it came to editing.
To reduce this, we should have re-thought our shooting schedule, but as we were pushed for time due to re-scheduling to other aspects such as weather, we had to again shoot when we were able to, and not when it was necessarily ideal, meaning that we were shooting at the busiest possible time in the most central location, as it was our last location to shoot at.
Practical issues such as the camera battery not lasting long enough also meant that we could not shoot on location for as long as we had hoped for, and we therefore had to rush some of the shots which when we over looked, were not quite exactly how we had planned them and therefore don't have the same desired effect.
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