Production

Farm House

Within our group, we experienced many issues. Some of these are: When organizing the days on which people were available to film either actors or part of the film crew, it was very hard to find any days where we all were available at once. This meant that quite a lot of the time, we were only able to film with a couple of the group members. We worked out that we could film Mondays, Wednesdays, some Thursdays and Some Fridays. We tried to avoid filming on the weekends as we know that this is sometimes the only day to rest during the week as most of the crew have a part-time jobs and work some of the days that we did not have lessons. As it was getting closer to the deadline we bit the bullet and ended up filming on weekends and we ended up booking days off work to make sure that we could get it all finished. It was also hard to get the filming done during college time as travel for some people is hard as public transport to where they live isn't very often. We also experienced issues with the actors needing to be in other people's films so they had college time booked out for them. We did however manage to sort all of the issues with the days of filming out and managed to get it all filmed. From this, I have learnt that we need to take any opportunity to film that we can even if some people can't attend.

Another issue we ran into as a group was the budget as we are only students and only some of us have part-time jobs, so there was not a lot of money to be able to put towards the film. So we did what we could and found as much as we could on a budget. This involved looking in charity shops and asking friends for different props and clutter to dress the set. From this, I have learnt that we should try to set a maximum spending amount and everybody in the group should contribute towards the total money.

We got let down by Townley Hall weeks before production was due to start meaning that panic mode set in and we needed to find somewhere else to film. From this, I have learnt that we should have backup plans for locations even if they seem promising and able to do. I managed to find a farmhouse that we were able to use, the only problem was the location as it was in Hurst Green, so very out of the way. The house is also still lived in by an elderly lady so we needed to be aware and cautious of her when filming. As we didn't want to bring too many people to the house in case we scarred the lady who lived there, we did this with a skeleton crew.

We filmed twice at the Herbalist before we started to encounter issues there also, the first time was okay as we just rescheduled. Frustrating as it was the day before we were supposed to film and a few of us had booked the day off work but we dealt with it and rescheduled to a couple of weeks later. when that date then came, they cancelled on us again. at this point, we decided that we needed to find somewhere else to film as we had 4 weeks until the deadline and that entire scene was not been filmed. we managed to find a bar in Rawtenstall that allowed us to film. then the day before the filming, we got asked to interview the prime minister meaning we had to change our filming to the week after, three weeks until the deadline! It wasn't ideal but it is what it is. Again with this, I learnt that we should have a backup location that we can film in case something goes wrong with the original location.

Filming at the farmhouse wasn't as hard as we thought it might be. The biggest problem was getting there as it was in the middle of nowhere. Three busses to get there and three again to get back and two different bus companies so it did cost us all. But once we were there, filming went smoothly. To get around this, I think that a portion of the budget should have been put aside for transport so we could get taxis or lifts (and pay for fuel) to the location as to drive there it takes 30 mins, on the bus, it takes 2.5 hours.

We did end up changing the script and some of the scenes slightly as we weren't able to take specific people to the farmhouse (the ghost eaters) so we changed it to Jacob eating the ghosts instead of the ghost eaters themselves. This did, however, cause us to have to change our ideas slightly as to why the finished film looks different to the storyboard in the pre-production.

Overall, filming went a lot smoother than I thought it would and I am very happy with the results footage that we achieved in the end.