Production Diary

Wednesday 7th March
This was our first day of recording. One of the first problems we encountered was how to set up to make it look like the location we had in mind. We wanted it to look like a deserted, dark, dingy underground basement. To do this, it was actually easier then we first anticipated. First, we had a light at the back of the studio which would shine forward. Bruce sat in front of the light too stop a glare on the camera. This created shadows and the perfect atmosphere to start recording. We then used the smoke machine to create the smoke affect in the air to again add to the intensity of this part of the film. Once we were all set up and happy to start recording, we encountered another problem. One of the actors rang in and told us he was ill land unable to make it to the recording. Luckily, we were able to find a willing replacement quickly who also suited the role. Ont his day, we recorded all of the intense part with the criminals talking about killing a customer. This was a great way to finish the recording as it was then easy to progress onwards.


Wednesday 14th March
On this day, we decided we were going to film the fight scene between the gang and cops. Another problem we then encountered was the actor who filled in for us last time was away on a trip. We tried to work around this by saying his character got scared and ran away, but it wasn't realistic enough and didn't look as good. To overcome this, we choreographed a fight scene and attempted to make it look busy and hectic so the audience would not notice the missing character. it was extremely hard for us to get the lighting and smoke looking exactly the same as the previous recording day and this broke to continuity. After looking back at the footage we shot in this day, we decided that it did not look funny but in fact silly as it was a silly fight. After discussing after options, we decided to go or a new approach to the fight sense so we booked another recording day to finalise our filming.

Wednesday 28th March
On this day, we decided to look into using the green screen and editing to create the fight. This could keep the comedy alive as it would be more slapstick and also look more impressive for the audience. To create this illusion of the fighting, we recorded each character individually. For example, we would foot shoot Chip punching towards the camera in front of the green screen. Next, we would film Joey pretending he just got punched and reacting. We did this with all characters and ensured they used over exaggerated facial expressions to help add to the comedy. in editing, we then put there two shots together to make it look like they are actually being punch. When we asked some people from our group to look at it, they laugh and agreed this was a lot better then the footage we shot before. Once we had all our footage and was happy, we moved onto editing.