Problems to Consider When Filming

Having now filmed for three weeks on the films, there have been several problems and issues that we have had to address and sort whilst filming 'A Truncated Parable of Complete Normality'. However, for some of this, we have been able to be prepared for the worst and see how we could overcome this problem.

Animals

In the film, we decided that David would own a dog (Tim) as a companion, helping to create a sense of loneliness. We decided we would use one of our group members dog to play this role, however, before filming, we had to be prepared for problems when working with animals. Although well trained, Tim was young and would be extremely active, meaning he may struggle to concentrate causing the scenes to become difficult to film in one day.  Because of this, Tim's owner ensured he was calm before each scene, and made him follow commands to try and get him to go into suitable positions. By doing this, we were able to be successful whilst filming the opening scene.

Office Related Scenes

When we were filming the main body of the film, we decided to use Barnsley College as our location for the office scenes as we understood that whilst it was a learning facility, it was also a working building and we felt this would be right to film. However, like the other problems, this was a problem that would cause us for concern on the sound quality on the film. The first issue was a small room that we used which was next door to the Vocational Performing Arts/Drama and Dance students and they were loud causing problems as the camera could pick up their voices. We tried to avert this issue by telling them to be quiet and respect that we were filming causing their voices to be minimal as we were able to be prepared for this issue. Another issue that caused major problems was the lift sequence as we decided to use the student lift that both staff members and College Students can used. This was a problem as we wanted the lift to be empty and we had to end up waiting until it was. Because of this, we could only film for about 5-10 minutes as we knew this could cause major disruption. Whilst we were successful in filming the office sequence, the lift sequence was not as successful because we were not as prepared for the filming of the sequence.

Props

One of the massive problems that occurred was the use of a prop we accidentally broke because in the office scene we wanted a part of the film where David went into the room looking at the clock which said 5 O'Clock and then David would walk out of the room. We chose to therefore use a clock which we accidentally broke as we needed to put it on a white wall to get decent lighting with the use of Blu-Tac. This unfortunately resulted in the clock's glass smashing as we were not prepared for that to happen unfortunately.

Overall, after experiencing these problem, there have been several things we have now learnt from and we are hopefully intending to avert these problems, should we need to re-shoot.

Actors

Because one of our actors was due to have her hair cut shorter than usual at the beginning of December, we needed to ensure all of their scenes were filmed prior to the appointment. Because of this, our filming schedule had reduced flexibility, however we were able to get the majority of our filming done in plenty of time, with room to re-film if necessary.