Inspiration and influence

We filmed the comic and visual styles based on a mixture of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and Ricky Gervais The Office.
Here are some examples.

Dairy of Filming // Monday: 03/12/2008

Day Seven: Editing
After a hard weeks filming it was time for us to sit in a dark room to edit what we filmed. This is a long and strenuous process. We have enlisted the help of professional editor Rob Schubel. Its not a one day job and we will be editing the seven hours of film all week. Nice pants Rob!

Dairy of Filming // Saturday: 29/11/2008

Day Six: The Brainstorm
In university on a Saturday! Had to do this a couple of times, Uni is great on a saturday, no que for the coffee shop and plenty of quite spaces to work. This was our reason to come in, we worked in our advertising studio room. Set up all of the equipment, filmed us brainstorming for two hours with he intention to put a time lapse effect in the editing. With that shoot over it was time for the final shot in the lecture theatre. For some reason, although it was a saturday and we were pretty much the only people in the whole building the security guard wouldn't let us in the room to film. We pleaded with the man and even bribed him with a galaxy caramel and a pack of monster munch - still he refused! what a nutter. Now comes the funny part. We went into stealth mode, we needed this shot and acted as if our lives depended on it. I snuck around the counter so the guard wouldn't see me, then round the back of the lecture theatre where i remembered there being a back exit. Prized the door open and beckoned Tom to come in and film on the down low. We managed to film it in dimmed light so the security guard wouldn't look in. Happy with the outcome we snuck back out the exit and passed the security guard with a smug look on our faces. We had beat the system! It was worth it. Well lets hope so. A hard weeks filming had come to an end. Now for the editing...

Dairy of Filming // Friday: 28/11/2008

Day Five: Soho
This day was supposed to be shot on day one, but we lost all of the footage. Subsequently we had to miss our studio day at university which was a bummer but had a couple of people jotting down notes so that we didn't miss anything important. Started early, filmed all the scenes again, this time we had more time to work on them and we feel have much better outcomes than first off. Spent the majority of our time filming down Frith Street where there are allot of agencies and in the Dog and Duck pub - a known favorite for creatives. Good day of filming. Maybe all this hard work is starting to pay off.

Dairy of Filming // Thursday: 27/11/2008

Day Four: In studios
Again, an early start. Had the a photography studio booked for 9am until 12pm. No time to waste, had to get in, set up and film. Had an interesting chat to one of the photography technicians and he gave us some tips on what dialogue to use. Cheers mate. Setting up took a while, had to sort out all the lighting, but soon got to shooting, great results, looked really professional and incredibly funny. Afternoon was the shoot with the illustrator, had to find a room to work in at last minute as the one we intended to use was locked! always a problem. Managed to find a perfect room, and with the help of great acting by our good friend Anna Gordon things turned out brilliant. Surprisingly enough we finished just before the rush hour, time to get back for a cuppa and catch up on missed episodes of Neighbours.

Dairy of Filming // Wednesday: 26/11/2008

Day three: Acting
Day three was another early start. We booked the large conference room in our university. We had the room for the day, and had four scenes to film there. Day started well, we drafted in a friend and professional actor of ours called Nick Deigman. With Nicks experience he was able to lend a helping hand in the shooting of challenging scenes. Altogether the day went well, delayed by constant laughter interrupting every scene, once you get the giggles you just can stop. Good sign that its making us laugh though. But the day wouldn't be complete without a disaster. And it came in the form of a scheduled actress canceling on us at the last minute. (names will not be mentioned, but you know who you are! you know! you know!....) With problems already arisen earlier in filming we acted calmly and swiftly to rectify the problem. Well done lad's. Ended filming at 7.30pm, and made it home in time to catch the champions league highlights. sweeet.

Dairy of Filming // Tuesday: 25/11/2008

Day Two: Long day.
The second day of filming required us to hire out one of the rooms in our University. We arrived to collect keys from our course tutor early in the morning and to set up the room ready for filming. Okay so all set, everything looking cool. In this scene we were supposed to film ourselves on our 'apple isights'. Problem number two, my recently purchased apple isight decided not to die. We needed these shots from the perspective of our laptops, so we had to go home (hour and a half to essex), collect a 14 year old camera and prop it up to look like its filming from my laptop. Already lunch time and no filming so far. Finally filming gets underway and all goes well. We get all the filming we needed in that location, returned the keys and exited university at 10:30pm. Another long day of filming, an another long day filming ahead of us. But at least it wasn't as bad as Monday. Again we learnt another valuable lesson, check all of the equipment before you even think about filming. With us running into so many problems early on, things could only get better.

Dairy of Filming // Monday: 24/11/2008

Day One: Disaster
Started filming promptly in Soho at 8.00am on a cold, wet and windy Monday morning. All seemed to be going well, had the majority of the shots done and making some good progress. Until we sat down for our final shot of the day in a local Soho cafe. It was here we had time to film and take shelter from the cold, with the rare opportunity of a rest we decided to review some of the shots on the hand held camera. This is where the disaster part comes in. The tape was BLANK! Nothing, nada, to show for our hard work and efforts. Heads went down and we were suddenly disheartened. With a few minutes to mull over what had happened we found some positives from the day. We had made a valuable lesson already! And we could use the day as a sort of dress rehearsal. It ment that we would have to film the shots again on another day, but were confident that by that time we would have had some more practice, and the shots would be better than before. So a big disappointment but we managed to take some positives from the negative outcome.

Diary of Filming

Whilst filming for the best part of two weeks we decided to keep a diary, to document how things worked, what problems we ran into and what we learnt. (coming soon.)

Planning is key.

When you are dealing with over 6 hours of footage, keeping track of time codes and order etc is key. For continuity you need to know what to wear when etc etc. When you are filming in different locations and not in order you need to get organized, and thats just what we did...

Edit, edit, edit.

Here we are, editing.
We've learnt something about editing, it makes your internal organs sweat with frustration. Lucky for us we have my flatmate, an editor, to help us. What a legend, THANKS ROB.
We're learning loads about final cut, and all the things people take for granted about film making. All good lessons for the future.

Robs editing fact: "nothings perfect". Tell me about it!

Who's that guy in our film?

If/when you see the film, you will notice some curiously professional acting. This is from professional actor, and longstanding friend, Nick Deigman. He brings a lot to the table, including: a professional edge, help with scriptwriting and a wheelie bin full of on screen charisma.

Check him out!