Production Journal

30th March 2013
Location: Paddington Underground Station, London

Finally, the day of filming had arrived! We had planned everything meticulously before the day, from the weather at key times to maintain lighting continuity, to meeting points and a shot list scheduled to benefit us when deciding which shots would be the most appropriate to film in which order.
The first obstacle we hit was one we hadn't anticipated. When deciding upon the place to film our opening, as well as considering the look of the station and whether it fit into our plot, we also considered the practical aspects of the location - would it be easy to film there, would we be given permission and would it be convenient for all members of our group to get there? Paddington was chosen because we could take a direct overground train from Maidenhead to the station, without the additional underground travel. However, due to works at Reading Station that were unforeseen until it was too late to change our plans, this direct link was not possible. In the end, we took a train to Slough, at which we caught a rail replacement coach service to Hayes and Harlington. From there, we finally got a train to Paddington. This meant that a journey that should have taken 45 minutes resulted in lasting 1 hour 30 mins. Luckily, this didn't put us too far off schedule for filming.

When we arrived at our filming location, we met up with our actor who was to portray Isaac, who had luckily not been affected by the travel disruption. After the initial introductions, we headed off to find the station supervisor to sign in and let them know we would begin filming. It took as while to find the correct office, but once signed in and fed with lunch, we discussed what shots to film first. It was decided that we would begin with all the shots which contained Isaac so that the actor could leave after they were completed. So our first location were the circle line platforms one and two. There, we managed to complete a good number of shots:

• Shot reverse shot of main characters on opposite platforms.
• Close up of Isaac.
• Shots of the map on the floor.
• Ariadne arriving at the platform.
• Shot from the bridge.

This took nearly 2 hours to complete but was done rather quickly when compared to what we had achieved with our preliminary task. At this point, we returned to the main area of Paddington as everyone was a little cold from waiting around for so long. The actor playing Isaac left us, leaving us to decide what to do next. We moved on to getting the exterior shots of Paddington that we needed for establishing shots in our two minute sequence. First, our director suggested we go to the exterior entrance to the underground platforms to get this shot, but upon arriving, it didn't have the crowds that we wanted. So we returned to the main area once more, taking a long shot of the exterior as we left.
It was at this point that we began to consider the various options for the location of our next set of shots. I began reviewing some footage and thankfully noticed in time that we had not turned on the microphone when filming on the platform previously. Whilst this was a bit of a hindrance, it was not crucial to re-film the shots we had, due to our plan to have the voice over being present throughout the entirety of that sequence, along with non-diegetic music.
Our filming crew the proceeded to film on a staircase that led directly to the underground platforms we had filmed on before. There we executed many shots, having to alter some due to the lack of crowds that we had not anticipated:

• Shots of Ari in crowds, walking down the stairs.
• Low angle shots of crowds feet.
• Ari's bag being knocked from her hands.
• Close up of papers being shoved back into bag.
• Still of Ari face and frustration.

We also improvised a little here to get the kind of shots we wanted, as we were not able to get some of the ones we had drafted into our storyboard. However, with this filmed, we decided to film to extreme close up shots at a later date, to make sure we had the time and space to achieve what we wanted, especially when it came to the drop sequence.


7th April 2013
Location: Home of director.

We scheduled our next filming day after we had produced our rough cut in the editing suit the day prior. Here we intended to film the extreme close ups of Ariadne, the drop sequence and any pick up shots that we needed to thread some scenes together. Two of a group members could not make it on the day but luckily this did not effect our productivity. We successfully captured:

• Various takes of Ariadne looking at the map.
• The main character seeing Isaac for the first time.
• The close ups of the map.
• The tickling water line on the map, turning red.
• The drop from the ceiling, using a pipet.

With this done, we had enough that we were pleased with to make our two minute opening. The voice over will be recorded later and added to the opening, fitting to the visuals and eventually, the soundtrack too.