Major Production Unit: Production - First Week

The day before filming, and the following in fact, I was very nervous about starting production: it had been over a year since I last directed a project and none with as big a cast and crew as Grit's. The first day of filming was, in all honesty, rough. We were scheduled to film the first three scenes where Sean, Zoe and Perry play cards, which was to be shot in two long takes with some reverses for the painting segment. Unfortunately, due to lack of space, the D.O.P was unable to move around freely enough to achieve the desired shots. This meant I had to improvise and ultimately resulted in some shots being missed: such as a reverse shot for when Sean collects the pizza at the front door and another reverse after he returns from over Zoe's shoulder. These would have helped the Editor in putting together a better sequence but with them overlooked, some of the mystery over the pizza man and the boxes changing to a script was lost. A tough lesson to learn.

Photos were taken by set photographer Alex Roberts.

Sound quality wasn't as good as it could have been as the room wasn't treated with some blankets to dampen sound, something (along with the overlooked shots) I feel to blame for. I believe I could have been better prepared in knowing the conditions of the location.

This tough start to the week dented my confidence coming into the second day but it was a much more successful shoot along with the rest of the week. I feel this was down to me becoming increasingly more comfortable around the cast and crew and being able to settle into my job better. By the end of the week I was really enjoying the production and we stayed on schedule throughout.

I learned a lot this first week: firstly from mistakes made and secondly from the actors, watching them interact with one another taught some ways to communicate with them. Working closely with my D.O.P taught me a lot about lighting and how to light up a shot to match the time of day and with other shots from the same scene.

Targets for Week 2:

- Communicate more with the cast.
- Don't be afraid to say something.
- Have a backup plan for shots incase we can't shoot the ones we wanted.