My two days of filming were brilliant. I got almost every shot I wanted and they were exactly how I imagined them to be. I ended up way ahead of my schedule and times I set for each scene and location without having to rush or skip a single thing.
My crew consisted of Harry Taylor (camera operator), Alex Barker (light and sound assistant) and Joanne McLellan (general assistant). They were all great, they followed my instructions and directions exactly how I needed them and I really couldn't have carried out my shoot without them.
My actors were my own mum, Joanne McLellan for the small role of Anna, as she's had previous acting experience, and two professional actors from Casting Call Pro. Elly Bran played my main character Mara, and Jay Ramji played my drug dealer character Rick. Joanne was obviously very trustworthy throughout filming and followed my directions perfectly, so I'm glad I cast her.
I couldn't be happier with my decision to cast Elly and Jay. They were both fantastic, they'd been great at communicating with me ever since applying for their roles, but were even better in person. They were both very polite and professional and made me feel like my characters were in safe hands. They both told me I was very easy to work with and that I'm a great director, so that made me feel like I'd done a good job! I'd love to work with them both again!
Jay had less screen time than Elly, so I spent a bit less time with him. But the time that I got to work with him went very smoothly. He's a very easy going person but was also serious about the job. So it was perfect. He portrayed Rick exactly how I wanted him to and wasn't afraid to ask any questions about the script which I appreciated.
As Elly had a lot more scenes than Jay, I spent more time with her and got to see more of her skills. She's a brilliant actress and brought so much emotion to the character of Mara. I thought her audition was great but when it came to it on the day, she blew me away. She genuinely made me feel really sad for the character when watching her act, it was brilliant. She was so easy to work with and made everything very easy for me.
While all of the filming, acting and directing went smoothly. It was a bit of struggle to set out the scene. I decided to set it up by myself before everyone arrived to save time. I needed to create and collect a lot of decor and props and set them all out in both the kitchen and the living room of my house. But as well as this, a lot of items needed to be moved around and simply out of the house. If we start with the kitchen...
This is how my kitchen usually looks...
I removed a mini oven, a toaster, cooking utensils, a clock, a kettle and items such as cake tins, bread bins, tea and coffee and a mop. Then I added lots of alcohol bottles, dirty dishes, cigarettes, lighters, empty wraps of 'heroin', burnt spoons, syringes and a piece of cardboard over the window. And this was the turnout...
It was difficult to transform the room by a lot. But I need to stop focusing on how the room looked before, as the audience won't know what the before and after is. I was going for the impression that Mara simply doesn't care about looking after the room, so she leaves mess everywhere. I chose the above decor as it fits her character, seeing as drinks heavily and abuses drugs. I removed certain items that I thought she simply wouldn't be bothered with like a mini oven, cake tin and bread bin. I also put cardboard over the window as it made the scene both slightly darker for me and gave more of a decaying look that I wanted.
After we finished filming in the kitchen, we moved straight onto filming in the living room. Which meant doing a much bigger set up. Luckily, as I had two men on my crew, they came in handy for moving furniture!
This is how my living room usually looks...
We started with Harry and Alex moving the larger sofa out of the living room and into the kitchen. They then had to move a large table from the corner of the room into the kitchen and place it on top of the sofa (both a difficult fit!). After this they moved the smaller sofa into the space where the table was. We then removed the rug, pouffe, end tables, and smaller items like bags, shoes, flowers, and personal items like framed pictures. Once this was done, I got out a sun lounger (sadly I didn't have a camper bed available, but this worked just as well) and laid it out in the centre of the room. I then put slightly stained sheets over it. Then scattered the same decor as the kitchen in the room, with the addition of clothes, belts, an ash tray and a framed photo of 'Anna'...
This gave a very good decaying and empty look to the room that I was going for. And again it gives the impression that Mara doesn't care about looking after the room. I think I could have scattered the decor out a bit more than I did as it's a bit too one sided but overall I'm very happy with the transformation and the look of the room.
When it came to the dialogue scene outside, I chose an alleyway. This was because it was good for cutting off any wind that could get in the way of the sound (and it was a windy day!), it had the dark decaying look that I needed, and as an alley is a secluded, private spot, it makes sense that the characters would have a drug deal there.
As well as a lot of set design on the day, I did costume design too. I of course had all of Mara, Anna and Rick's costumes planned out and ready to wear on the day.
Jay (Rick)'s costume was quite simple to decide on. I wanted him to just have your every day, average guy look. But I didn't want any bright colours, to fit with the film's style.
While Rick's costume was simple, there was a lot of hair and make-up involved when it came to Joanne and Elly.
This is how Joanne usually looks...
And by giving her messy hair and eye make-up that looked like she'd been crying, she looked like this...
Along with her fantastic ability to look so upset, I think her hair and make-up really gives the impression that she's falling apart. I love how her costume turned out.
The most detailed costume was Mara's. Elly's usual look and the look I kept for flashbacks of her looks like this...
I gave her dark, black, smudged eyeliner, pale lips, dark circles under her eyes, messy tied up hair, and fake track marks on her arms. I also gave her fake tapers and hoops in her earlobes, a fake hoop high up on her ear and a fake hoop on her nose. After all of that, she looked like this...
I wanted Mara to have quite an effortless look, as well as tired and slightly sickly from withdrawal from drugs for a day. I think the smudged make-up, the dirk circles under her eyes and the messy, tied up hair portray this really well. I also wanted her to have quite a tough exterior, so the piercings bring that extra edge. I'm really pleased with Elly's costume.
I think I managed to do a decent job of her track marks. Annoyingly the ones I did for practice a couple of days before were slightly better! But I think they look quite realistic. I just wish there wasn't a slight shimmer from the eye-shadow!
I put a lot of work into filming both before and during. Obviously it was made ten times easier by my cast and crew, but I'm glad I made sure to be prepared. I had a shot list of over 70 shots and managed to get more than that. I managed to give clear directions to my crew about camera angles, sound and lighting, and to my cast about how I wanted them to use the set, space, props and how to portray the actions.
The only real problem that I ran into was that two 8GB memory cards proved to not be enough for my film! Towards the end of the shoot I started to really lack on space and had to delete certain clips. That was slightly stressful as it made me worry but my crew reassured me that I had more than enough coverage.
Overall, I enjoyed filming. I was nervous about how it would go for weeks. But when it came to it, everything went almost perfectly and it was great to see everything that I'd imagined come to life. I think I captured a lot of Fincher's trademarks and once I edit the film it'll look even more effective. I can't wait to start!
