When starting film number 2, we decided to begin filming on a friday we had off, following a storyboard also composed by another one of the group members. I felt it would have been a good idea to film during the week and make use of the time but was comfortable to film on the friday regardless, even though I had some plans to hand in some papers regarding my new residence next year.
I wanted to make use of the scenery with a long distance landscape shot of the scenery and had the idea of turning it into a timelapse, by speeding up the clip. I didn't want to spend too long filming them though as we would likely only end up using a few seconds of the clip and worked by percentages. For example, taking 30 seconds of footage and speeding it up by 100% would make it last 15 seconds long. If we wanted it at 200%, it would last 7.5 seconds long.
I consistently referred to Tim, the storyboarder, as to what approaches we would take. We had both worked on the script for the dialogue earlier on in the day and refined it, changing out some words and replacing some lines as well as setting down the choreography for a fight scene that would take place later on. I brought up the idea of introducing a sound effect to make my voice sound more ghostly, as to avoid the same criticism we received in our first film in the concept of anchoring meaning to an actor's role. I wanted some of the wildlife and foilage in the shots, plants and such, and a distinct switch between long-shot and close shot in order to establish the remoteness of the location.
Later on, our story boarder and simultaneous lead actor for this particular film Tim had to feign falling over and passing out from the cold. I suggested earlier that he breath into his hands and mimic typical behaviour one does when they are cold. We took many shots of this and it took a while to get a result I would agree with. Some of the takes looked too scripted and too acted, e.g and I eventually decided to call out to Tim some suggestions of what to do whilst collapsing. All this involved was telling him to drop the bottle he was holding as he fell, rather than before he fell, fold his arms as if struggling for warmth and eventually fall over.
I tried to resolve any creative conflicts via voting or agreement. If two people agreed with a shot whilst another was unsure, we would go with ahead with the shot, as I did not want to delay filming for reasons even they aren't sure of. If there is still some disagreements, we carry out practice shots, live shots, and re-watch the footage and analyse it, and if necessary, compare it to another shot or angle to decide which to use. In some situations we will agree to make some decisions later on, but in the case that they don't, we usually decide there and then what shot we will end up using.
I knew that since in this film there were certain things we wanted to portray; the character Tim was playing would descend into a weaker state of mind and health, until he became so dizzy and cold that he passed out. I portrayed this through the use of specific shots that would portray this, such as the tilted shot close to the ground, progressively shakier camera and handheld shots. Some of these involved me carrying the camera whilst walking backwards, unable to see where I was going. Another suggested shot for the same clip was for Tim to walk along holding the camera infront of him, but I thought it would be easier on the actor and have a better degree of accuracy than Tim trying to hold it infront of him whilst keeping it pointed at his face. The idea of the shot was to keep Tim's head in the center whilst the world around him moved. I liked the concept of the shot and I have seen it used before, and for what it was being applied to, it was being used for, would have been good. But the effect we achieved when we tried the same thing was not of the same caliber.
Our post-production editor had a car, which was doubtless a great asset which I think we made good use of. We drove up to Ilkley Moor for the shoot and decided we would try and film it all on the same day. Things went well, and the weather was appropriate for a fim based on a poem named 'Sulking Winds'. We got some good footage and only had occasional problems with shots such as pedestrians, climbers, the rain getting on the lens and other problems which worsened.
The weather got very cold, very windy and very wet. We were all practically freezing to death and we didn't want to risk the equipment getting damaged so we packed up, and since the weather looked like it wasn't going to stop any time soon, decided to head back and resume filming on the monday after the weekend.
On reflection it was definitely an interesting day of filming and quite an experience. The footage, upon viewing, we decided was well worth the effort and much more fitting and appropriate to what we were filming.
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