Producing

The producing process.

As we had less time due to changing ideas later on in the process, I became the producer as well as director so I could quickly organise the shoot and have everything I wanted and needed for it in place. I thought this was best as I knew exactly what was needed for the project and had everything I needed ready to go. To make sure everyone was on board and knew what was happening I organised schedules so the actors and team could prepare themselves and nothing was last minute. Below, are the schedules I sent out.  As the producer I organised the entire production including actors, locations, schedules etc... so it was important for me to be on time and prepared for anything.  As a producer, I emailed my actors and crew every day to keep them informed especially if anyone had ideas or something changed.

Equipment Lists

Locations

Getting the location was also crucial as I didn't know anywhere in Sheffield well enough. Myles went and scouted locations with me and we found 3 locations that were very easy to get to and very convenient for filming. I wanted a bus stop on a busy city centre road, a park and a quiet street. The first location actually had a park attached to it so we decided to use this and make the shots appear as if they were 2 completely separate places e.g. you couldn't see the park from the street. We also filmed various cut a ways in the city and park but these were all done in the same place.

Location 1/2 - street and park - Gell Street

We chose this location as it was out of the way and had a more rural feel to it as opposed to the city centre scene which has traffic and large buildings. It was also really local so the actors and crew had no problem getting there, especially with the equipment. This street was really quiet and peaceful surrounded by trees so gave us a really good visual look. As for the park, we asked for permission to film first and that was fine. The park itself was small and had lovely serene surroundings and was always empty. 

Location 3 - City centre bus stop.

This was the 2nd location and we used the entire street and an out of service bus stop outside of the adsetts centre. This location was perfect to use as we had access to an empty bus stop where you could see all the traffic going by and buildings all the way up the road.

Getting the actors.

As soon as the idea changed over I instantly emailed actors I knew from University and asked them if they'd be interested. I sent over all the details including - script, potential schedule, treatment and character bios so they could really get the idea and understand what I am trying to achieve before agreeing to film and act for us. Overall I emailed 4 actors - 2 boys and 2 girls just in case any were to say no or were not available on the dates. Luckily, I got fast responses and met up with my actors a few days later for a script read through and to discuss any issues or ideas they had for me. 

Communication

As we changed ideas I also decided that I needed to find a simple way to communicate with my team. I didn't think social media was a good way to do this especially as some team members had no social media.  I wanted it to be professional and equal so everyone could get involved whenever they had something to share. I thought the best way was to set up a group email where we could attach documents, links and share ideas whenever we wanted. As well as this I also got the contact numbers of my team to inform them if I had anything that required a response asap. This proved to be really effective for us and everyone in the team communicated much better like this and it was easier for when we were not at university.   I also arranged full team meetings twice a week to make sure everyone knew what was happening. If some one was able to attend I copied the information to them via email. I do think that some members could have contributed more and this might have affected our student ship but overall we communicated and got along well.