Get off my land filming day!

Today was filming day for our recreation of the short film 'Get off my Land' and I have to say, thank you to Andy, Katey and Mike for giving your time to act in the film. Oh and thanks to baby Noah for keeping quiet while we were filming. This morning, I was dreading the filming because of the weather. It was forecast to be rainy, wet and a little windy. However, we appeared to have a lot of luck as not only did it not rain, there was no wind and the sun was out all day, making conditions brilliant for the filming.

Location was a problem to start, this is because we started with one, then had to change, and then had to change again but in the end we did get a good location. It was a place in attleborough and there were 3 fields and a public path where we filmed. The first field (pictured left) was one of two in which only one shot was recorded there. This is because a majority of the film took place in a larger field a 5 minute drive down the road. This larger field was a near perfect location that contained long grass, short grass, many trees and luckily a beautiful sun shining through the trees. 

I found the directing quite difficult to start as I was not sure how to clearly explain the shots but I got

there in the end with help from my storyboard (pictured right).  Unfortunately, over the morning, the storyboard was covered in mud, fake blood, and grass but I took the picture of it before filming as I knew this may have happened. We only needed a single script today as there were so many different shots that there was no need to ask the participants to learn their lines, I sent them all the video so that they could watch it in advance, but just told them their line before the shot was taken. They all acted very well and were good and believable characters.

Also there was one last minute change this morning with the filming. We were unfortunate that we were not able to aquire a real or realistic shotgun so we put a modern twist on it... A Nerf gun. I think that as much as this was not the desired plan, it will add a little humour to quite a serious short film.

Staying on the topic of props, I had a fun time making the fake blood for the scene in which the woman (played by Katey) is covered in blood from the man (played by Andy). The recipe was one

that I found online and it consisted of water, corn flour and a little dark red oil paint. I think that it looked very good (and much better than the commonly used ketchup), but I think if I was going t do it again, I would look for a recipe that produces a darker, thicker blood as I think that would look better. To apply the fake blood to the woman's face, I used a paint brush and flicked it on (picture left). It was really funny to do and the outcome looked very good.

To film, I used a Camelio X400 camera and a tripod. One thing that I found useful was the remote that my camera had with it. It meant that I was able to start and stop recording without having to risk the camera shaking. There were, however, a few shots in which the camera follwed someone or panned, so for those ones, I did not use the remote.

I thought that overall, the day went very well and I can't wait to start editing the shots to put the film together. I really enjoyed the filming as it was not only very fun, but the conditions and the location mean that I am sure it will turn out well.

Thanks to:
Andy Woodrow - the man

Katey Woodrow - the woman
Mike Woodrow - the farmer
Terry Ward - for letting us use your land rover
Noah Woodrow - for not being too loud
Angela Robson - for the camera tripod