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Eye Of God Nebula: beautiful.

Filming Day 8: Milbay Docks

So at 8am my uncle gave a lift to a 9 year old boy, his 6 year old brother, and their mum. I gave a lift to a Morrisons trolley, a plant in a pot and of course, Moira. So it was our last day. So so very tired. But it felt good. We felt accomplished – and I felt that regardless of the result or weather of today – the project overall was a good success for us both.

Note to self: complete when a) can be arsed, b) have time.

Filming Day 7: Roadside Scene + Living Room

Filming Day 6: Sleepy Park

The weather today thankfully was as we wanted it. Making two trips to the car up hill taking the armchair and then the lamp was tiresome – especially since all in all we made 12 trips on the two occasions we filmed. Drawbacks for filming in Central Park were as follows: 1) dogs 2) their nosey and / or strange owners and 3) squelchy slippery marshy regions 4) bad lighting at night time (which eventually became an asset and changed the way we approached showing the night shots in the film).

So today we filmed me waking up wrapped in a blanket on an armchair, with a lamp behind me. Then we came home, dried ourselves – went to the moors where I was stalked by Dartmoor ponies. They kept following me as I walked in a circle around the pony poo. Admittedly I was intimidated by them, but I wanted the sweet luxury goodness of their waste. I stood my ground and somehow we communicated, where I convinced them that they weren’t going to win this battle. I won, and my reward was stinky pony poo that made me want to gag. I returned it to the car in a tray for Moira to hold on the way back home – after we drove around the moors to find the ideal spot for filming the roadside “linking” scene.

It's you or me punk, and I know that I want it to be you who leaves.

Around 4pm we went back to Central Park to film – it got darker a lot quicker than we thought it would. We had a dilemma: film in auto mode or twilight mode? The former shows grainier as (I presume the ISO is upped: thus creating a grainier image?) and the latter shows duller and darker than the scene before us shows. We ended up filming in both – but decided we will use just the darker twilight shots. We have me walking along a path with trees and lampposts either side. We also have good closeups of me sleeping, pulling the blanket out from behind the sofa back. We achieved this by cheating: we took the hand touch lights we had in the lampshade and held them closer to where we were filming. This gave the illusion that the light of the lamp was brighter than it actually was. So – Luke finds the sofa at night but we only see close up shots so the audience is confused. It is not until we see the morning version of this scene that we will reveal the sofa and scene in its entirety.

How did we position the sofa and lamp in exactly the same positions in morning and at night? I brought some spray paint with me to mark the corners of the sofa on the grass below. It was good filming again, but we’re both really tired now, and I have a cold too. We’re physically and mentally tired now, but the worst is around the corner – tomorrow will be the climax, and Sunday the finale with the filming of Milbay Docks. Today, Moira and I were communicated much much better. When she shouted “freeze” I froze where I was and she ran to film from a new perspective. This saved a lot of time having to retrace steps / positioning to continue a sequence of shots.

A couple dogs decided to wipe themselves on the sofa. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to kick them more or their owners. By the end of the night, dog and owner alike were seen as dogs, in my eyes and in Moiras. Moira said in the morning that the saying “curiosity killed the cat” was wrong… today it should have been “curiosity killed the dog”. Fitting the sofa / armchair thing into the car was a bit tiring too. I laughed when I overheard children being really frank about what they saw, when I returned to the car to get the lamp to add to the sofa at the top of the hill – where Moira was sat resting and waiting for me.

Boy child) Hey Matt, look at what that girl’s doing, they’re sat on a sofa! They’re sat on a sofa!

Girl child) Mummy, why is she sat on a sofa? That’s really stupid… maybe she doesn’t have a home!

I laughed, so did the mother. There was a friendly woman and a Scottish man that came to us. There was a rather annoying individual that came up and insisted that we had a gas heater on, and that’s why in the dark the lamp showed that it was lit. Another old nosey man and his wife came over to us like the Police to ask what was going on. We had finished filming by this point so we actually spoke to him about the project as opposed to offering a non-commital “heh” like Moira did to the other guy. We were filming, we didn’t need a**hats talking to us about nothings.

That is all. Now we’re going to load the transit van with all the props, finish making pony poo alternatives, etc etc etc. Tick lists are the devil. So are dogs. And their owners too. Elect me prime minister and I’ll make sure dogs are all de-domesticated – like the rest of Gods creatures. Cats too.

Filming Day 5: Burrator + Ivydale [Round 2]

It rained from the morning until the time we arrived at home. It was also cold, but not too cold to get naked in. We drove to Burrator and waited for the rain to stop. When we realised such an attempt was futile – we had a list of the shots we wanted, ran outside… I got naked and we filmed me walking only with my shoes to the edge’s water, throwing the trolley off a rock, jumping into the water and swimming around. It was quite an experience, fun, yet admittedly very cold. The water in the lake also tasted a bit funny.

After the shivering stopped I drove home barefooted, showered, we charged the camera and captured / exported again. My cousin drove us in her big car to Ivydale Road where we filmed me dragging a sofa up the road. We filmed the various angles and such and returned home by 4pm.

Shorter day today, but the first part was definately challenging. The camera thankfully was fine as Moira had a big umbrella down her coat over her head.

Filming Day 4: Gwithian Beach

Moira and I headed down to Gwithian Beach in Cornwall at 8am. Took us nearly two hours to get there, and then I realised I drove to the tall cliffs where you could only get down by foot, not by foot + Morrissons trolley. We asked some ladies for directions and ended up in a car park where we only had to cross a bridge to get where we needed to.

Filming went well. It was unfortunate the tide came in too quickly, washing the blanket away and filling it with sand. We had to work our way up the beach 3 times. We looked at tide times today too, but once again we underestimated how fast the tide would climb up the beach. The sunshine was also a problem. 1) It showed clearly with the shadows that it was about 3pm, even if it wasn’t. 2) We lost some potentially good shots due to the shadow of Moira not letting us film from certain angles. Though unfortunate, we got all the shots we needed, and some more on top. Less fortunate was I, when I had to take my trousers off and walk through a cold pool of water to drag the trolley back to the part of the beach we needed to return to to get back to the car.

We drove home and stopped at Truro for some pub food and St Austell for some Cornish Pasties. I think Moira was just more impressed that she was in Cornwall, the land that Aphex Twin was born in :p

Filming Day 3: City Centre

At 9am Moira, myself, my mum, dad, brother, uncle and auntie headed to town in 3 cars. Mum went to Sainsburies to buy  fresh apples for the old man to drop out of his shopping bags.

We decided against filming along the 2nd busiest road of town, where there was a bus stop, as we would have wasted a lot of time losing shots to the curious public gazing in the direction of the camera. We ended up filming outside the closed YMCA, which was perfect as it is central and very quiet.

Filming went smoothly. An issue of continuity arose when the actors felt inclined to “help pick things up” that should have been left where they were (for example, when the old man dropped his shopping). Reflections in the bus stop glass and YMCA windows were also a minor issue – however in the grander scheme of things it was irrelevant. The filming went well. The members of public that came to the bus stop spoke to us whilst we were setting up shots. The weather and lighting was good – although sunny, being in the shade meant we did not have problems with harsh lighting or harsh shadows.

It took 3 hours to film this scene. We returned home in the 3 cars we came with, ate, recharged the camcorder battery, to return to town in the afternoon. We captured shots of Luke finding objects without the trolley around town. We then waited and fixed the floor standing lamp with copious amounts of double sided tape when the wind broke the light bit off the stand. Filming was alright: due to the grain being bad in low light and normal filming mode, we had to turn to a mode with a lower sensitivity, so the shots were darker. The battery lit lights we placed in the lampshade, however, were bright enough to show that the lamp was lit, and more importantly, not by electricity.

That was it – long and tiring day – but on schedule and fun to film.

Today Was Awesome.

Today was really awesome. That is all. More tomorrow.

Filming Day 2: Tamar Bridge + Ivydale Road

After a late nights sleep, we woke up tired to start Day 2. It was raining hard so we postponed our shoot from 9am to 12pm. We drove to Tamar Bridge, spoke to Mike at the Control Centre who I had spoken to before. He forwarded us to Richard – the guy who sent us an e-mail with permission to film on the bridge provided we didn’t ruffle up any old ladies or have any nude shots. Thankfully the latter are reserved to a secluded scene on the moors.

So we filmed, and it rained lightly – but we got all the shots we needed and most of the shots we wanted. We cracked the mirror with the weight of the flowerpot with the weight and the vibrations of the rough pedestrian path. We figured we could run with a “split face” look the crack along the centre gave us – adding to the tucked away connotations throughout the film. Moira shared a very good saying they have in Malta: “Kull deni hudu b’gid’ which translates to: “Every bad thing that happens, take it as a good thing”. These words were needed, as we had to compromise yesterday’s scene at Whitsand Bay due to tide that came in fast and the heavy rain and strong wind / cold too. The “bad things” merely pushed us towards having new ideas to take advantage of what we had around us – weather and material alike. Thinking like this is great to keep motivation, inspiration and morale at a high – regardless. I thought the weather would be more of an issue – but Moira and I now feel that if anything – the overcast gloomy sky is an asset to our film as opposed to a hindrance. We have good ideas for the editing stage as far as filters and colouring is concerned, and this weather is ideal for working with those ideas.

Beyond Tamar Bridge, we came home for a while before having the help of my uncle with his car to carry many props with him to the Ivydale Road scene (the steep one where Luke struggles up hill and accidentally breaks an item he collected from town). We filmed this scene quickly and smoothly, knowing what shots we needed and getting them. It was a bit darker than I thought it would be – but this was not a problem. Having to fake pant at the top of the road was problematic – so I had to breathe heavy almost to hyperventilate to look more realistically flustered and out of breath. We discovered a good cobbled roads with loads of bins which looked really good: we decided to use it as our location for the shots of the breaking kitsch items.

We finished at 4pm. The weather setback meant we didn’t get to film the linking scene from urban to rural, but it’s so brief and laughable that we’re not really behind schedule. Tomorrow will be a busy and challenging day filming the town scene.

[Update] As well as creating an artificial battery lit light source for the lampshade for town tomorrow, and fixing the broken mirror – we’ve had to re-write the “quarry scene” which has now become the “sleepy park” scene”, to be filmed on Thursday. We’re going to have to go back to Ivydale Road too and include a few seconds worth of footage showing Luke with the sofa he collected from this changed and re-shuffled shift. This shift now means that the night / evening / night / day divide is understood much more clearly by the audience.

P.s. God, if you keep it dry all through to Saturday, I will leave a Mars bar on my doorstep on Monday, as an offering to you in your good grace. Amen.

Filming Day 1: Whitsand Bay Beach + The Hoe

The day started off today with a bit of concern from myself and Moira. It was cloudy and we expected rain from the weather report. Nonetheless, we headed to Whitsand Bay we got to by taking the Torpoint Ferry to Cornwall. When we arrived we had the difficult task of taking the heavy Morrissons trolley down the cliffside, which is windy, narrow, slippery and pathless at times too.

When we arrived at the beach it started raining. We thought we’d take advantage of this by getting an umbrella and having Luke (the protagonist… i.e. me) hold an umbrella as he was to read the Bible on the beach. I went back to the car to get the umbrella and the heavy rain started. I got soaking wet through to my boxers and had to hide with Moira upon return in the shelter of a small cave. We continued filming but it was very cold and my feet were hurting badly because of it after a good hour or so (we also waited to dry my trousers on the rocks a bit). The tide ended up coming in much quicker than we expected. We looked at the tide times the night before and saw that the tide would be high at 1pm. The tide came in very quickly and immersed the trolley with foam and water, so we had to salvage the mirror under the rocks in the trolley, foot deep in cold water. We then tried to wash the trolley of foam in the sea, further getting immersed in the sea. We came home tired and drenched.

Moira got some interesting shots, tried the “stalker cam” approach which looked pretty effective (she’s editing right now – later I need to do the same as well and we’ll contrast and compare). After coming home I showered and the clothes were put in the tumble drier. An hour or so later we headed out to the Plymouth seafront: The Hoe. After finding parking, carrying the props that were needed to the scene and dressing Moira up with my fathers old coat and my mutilated gloves with cut fingers… she had become the homeless character we introduced to a relatively empty scene: where Luke was only to pick up a coffee table and place it in the trolley. It was also pleasing to know that Moira had her physical input on the screen too.

The idea was this: Moira was dress up as a homeless person, Luke was not to really notice her presence too much, and as he stopped the trolley by her to walk towards the coffee table, examine it and pick it up: Moira looked to see if Luke was looking (he wasn’t), picked her nose and wiped it on the handle of trolley.

This sequence (which in the film will be cut down to about 19 seconds) took 1 hour 40 minutes to film, and luckily we were finished by 3:20pm, when the sky was hinting that it would like to get darker for the sun to set.

We returned home with a feeling of accomplishment. Yesterday we went around Simon’s house – a top UK BBC Editor, and he was there with his Director friend, and they gave us tips, good wine, good food, great company and live music, and on top of that, as Simon was merrily pacing around his room, with perhaps a bit too much wine in him – a professional camera / charger to use.

Admittedly we have wasted a LOT of time making the camera work. After a couple months, yesterday we realised (with the help of Simon) that the reason the Canon VIXIA HV30 camcorder would not capture was because the chip for firewire had fried. Annoying. Thankfully though, our friend Marco lent us his brother’s camcorder which he used himself for his final year project. Thank you Marco, indeed “sharing is caring” as you say!

So we returned home with a sense of accomplishment. We made a short list of the few remaining props and when we need them, we re-arranged certain scenes to coincide with the very reliable *cough* BBC weather and Met Office weather reports for this week: and we planned how to shuffle days around if like today, and like tomorrow was predicted: it was a bit of a wash out. Praise the weather of this land. Amen.