We set off around half 8 to reach the location where we were meeting the actors. We hit some issues early on as we realised one of the props we had was unacceptable. It was a small knife which was to be used as a weapon. Not wanting to sacrifice on quality, the director decided to attempt to get another better knife. We did do this but it pushed the shoot back by an hour. We got there around 10 o'clock, to some disgruntled actors.
We pushed on and we collectively head down to the cave to set up for the shoot. There we encountered another significant issue. The tide was in, meaning we couldn't round the cave systems to get to the cave we needed to be at further down the beach. This set us back a few hours as we had to wait for the tide to go out. This was an incredibly frustrating issue to have, because we had everyone there ready, which is difficult enough to achieve. But we had nothing to do but wait. After little over an hour the tide started to go out and we made our way to the cave. By this point it was around 12 o'clock. We had our actors until half 4. Those few hours we lost inevitably came back to haunt us later on in the shoot.
We reached the cave and set up eventually. The director spent the previous night breaking down the script again to see what we needed to create a solid structure for the film to be coherent. I felt like this was a good plan and gave us incentive to act on the day. The set backs prior to our arrival at the cave also presented a good opportunity to discuss the shots. On the day we had two cameras, and as since we don't have two camera operating roles on the crew of Trick of the Dark I was able to operate one of the cameras. I was fully confident in doing this, as from my experience of directing over this academic year has given me an in depth understanding knowledge of the black magic mini ursa. This second camera meant that we were making the shoot time shorter through getting two shots simultaneously, just like we do on the crew of Echoes of Silence.
The primary cast on set. Scott, Susie and Alex, talking over the script.
Once we got underway the shoot went really well. We quickly caught up on lost time and we were extremely effective in setting up the equipment ready to shoot. The actors were great in their readiness to deliver and we quickly got into the flow of things. It was an intensive shoot, as that was always going to be the case as we knew, but that was at the back of my minds as we were shooting to avoid rushing the shots we needed. The shoot was also extremely safe under the circumstance, as co-producer on set this was something I had to be mindful of, a couple of times I went ahead to scout out any potential hazards (all of which are covered in the risk assessment) to make sure the cast and crew were not heading into any danger. All in all it was fine, it was a nice sunny day with plenty of people around who would occasionally pass through the cave. A few people would typically stop and ruin our sound, but other than that we were tucked away nicely in the corner of the cave providing the cover and lighting we desired. Below are some BTS shots from the shoot of the cast and crew at work.
Going forward with Trick of the Dark we still have a lot to do when it comes to creating a solid coherent film. I'm staying active with the film up to and after deadline to make sure it is completed and we are currently working on organising ADR and intensive editing sessions to meet the current deadline on May 14th.
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