This week as a team we needed to hurry along and complete all aspects of pre- production for our project during the half term Joe was able to complete a story board which is perfect and has been a great guide in order for me to complete a shot list/plan for us to follow when we shoot.
Jack also went ahead and did some location scouting and did find the perfect location not to far from his house in Coulsdon I do not currently have the paperwork to hand but it was a collection of alleys that he explained to me do not have that many cars venturing down during the day and is also out of the way. The key features were a corner at each end which was the most important part in order to act out the scenes. Jack also went ahead and wrote about the health and safety constraints which I will place in this or the next post when I have them to hand.
This week we also decided on casting for each of the characters. They include everyone in our group and two people I have collaborated with in the past. There was a good amount of though into who would play who and we decided on the following:
- Jack- Will be Played by Jack Rodford
- Terry- Will be played by Conor O’Hagan
- Andre- Will be played by Johnny Zola
- Dealer- Will be played by myself
- Two Bodyguards- Seb Griffin-Keane and Joe Devlin
There was originally a plan to have a character by the name of Tommy in both the pitch and the script for the film but due to time constraints and no one being readily available to be able to play him and the fact that the character didn’t even have any lines in the script I have decided to remove him from the section of the film were going to be producing.
Other then that there were no issues with casting and each member of the cast were given a script to learn their lines Friday afternoon when I completed the final draft with Tommy removed.
Having done all of this I decided it would be important for me to create a shot list and a small amount of notes on the way i would like to shoot and some basic shot ideas that I can reference to when we are on location and filming. It is important we focus on camera work and the cinematic feel of the film. Having done these we have begun to work out our production schedule.
Our plan as of Friday 3rd is to shoot on the coming Wednesday on location and then the poker scene inside the college TV Studio Thursday. Myself and Joe who is the DOP have decided we are going to attempt a two camera shoot in order to minimise takes and also to be able to explore multiple angles. We also own the same camera so we can set up and make sure that the videos will look identical once exported.
I have a collection of other work to finish now but am confident going forward with this project and am looking forward tremendously to producing the film.
Nathan Shanks 