Fiction Adaptation: Prayer

Dear God, 

I wanted to thank you for all that I have, I don't want to be greedy and am thankful but I wish that my family all come for christmas and travel safely this year, it would be lovely to have snow so the kids can make snow angels while I have drinks with the adults. I just want you to help aunt Maggie to not burn the dinner. I am thankful that I have a job and a warm roof over my head while others struggle and are not as thankful. 

Amen. 

This is the prayer that will be a voiceover while my main character walks down the aisle of the church, this will be in the background for the whole time he is walking until he walks into the side room with the candles, I am not sure about the words but they are not selfish and asking for stuff but also thankful and talking about family. I am getting a male to do the voiceover as I feel it would be more appropriate as all my actors are male and I feel it will give a better effect as men tend to not show emotion as much.  

Fiction Adaptation: The Shoot

On the day of the shoot the church told us to be there for 12.30 so just after the sunday service. Me and my 2 actors arrive early at 12.20 so we could be punctual and make a good impression, we met the reverent Carolyn and went over where we will be filming so she was briefed and so was my actors.
Carolyn asked how long we would take as she would need to keep the church open for us, she was hovering around and making us feel pressured as she was watching waiting to close the church to go home, so I had to do the inside scenes first. This only took us about 45 minutes as there wasn't much I needed to film inside the church I just needed to make sure I got all the camera angles needed so the POV and following the actor but also just the feet walking towards the altar and POV of the feet.
We then did the outside in the graveyard with my little boy actor this we had plenty of time for and didn't feel rushed but we managed to get it in 2 takes and I took several different angles to give me more coverage, this was all done on the shoulder rig and I felt like it was still a bit to shakey and will need stabilising in the edit.
The field bit at the end I decided to do on the tripod instead on a follow shot as it was beautiful with the sun and lens flare plus you then get to see the actors head event hough they are wearing a hood as I didn't want to give away the actors identity so the audience can be in suspicion instead.

Overall I am happy that I have filmed and still have time to edit but I felt a bit rushed at the beginning and could of been a bit more stable with the shoulder rig, if I would of had the choice I would have rather filmed all on a tripod as its more stable and the audience won't feel ill and not want to watch because of the shaking but this was a learning experience that I know I won't be doing again in a hurry without more practice with the should rig and making it more stable.

Fiction Adaptation: Shot List

• POV with me holding the camera all the way through 
• POV of actor's shoulder all the way through
• Actor walking into the distance over the fields
• POV on feet walking over the fields 
• POV of feet walking over the fields as an extra close up 
• Actors hands in pocket and camera follows in front 
• Feet walk from left to right on the screen
• Over the shoulders where actor not in focus 
• Floor shot walking through the church and field
• Small shots in the church so not much is seen
• Close up shots of hand opening doors.
• Sunset
• Actor picking up a flower and letting it drop
• Close up of a candle flickering 
• Wide shot of loads of candles flickering 
• Shot of ripples on a lake 

There is not a lot that happens in this film as its a silent and emotional piece in only a few locations so there is not a lot of shots that are needed, I have wrote down as many different shots as I could think of that would make it easier to edit an cut and not make it all POV. I feel that there is enough variety of shots that I could film so make should I get all the coverage and have more to work with.

Fiction Adaptation: Locations

I am now filming in St.Marys church in Broomfield, Chelmsford. This church has a graveyard which surrounds the whole church so there is plenty of places in which I can film the boy crying over a grave, and there is a walkway with an archway leading to the entrance of the church via a couple of graves where I would prefer to film as it would fit the film perfectly and make it easier and better to film.

This is the archway in which I would like my main character to walk through and up to the door and as you can see there is graves and not a long walkway in which I would have room to cut the footage if necessary. 

Fiction Adaptation: Candles

This is my test with candles for a scene in my film, my main character walks into a room full of flickering candles to represents the soldiers. So I layer out nearly 100 candles on my living room floor as this is the biggest room in my house, this took a while to light them as there was so many. I did have a problem of my thumb starting hurting so I used a already lit angle to light the rest and I accidentally got wax on the carpet so should of probably done this outside. 

I experimented with lots of different shots, I did close ups like this and then blew a little at it to show movement and a breeze I also tried blurring it and depth of field shots so I could cover lots and have more to work with in the edit. 

This is who many I used, I rounded them up after blowing them out and moved them and this is how many, it doesn't look like a lot and i pictured more in my film but in the dark filming them flicker it was good and I feel like I got some good shots just needed more speed out and more on the left of the room. 

Fiction Adaptation: Test Shot

This is the test shot I did with my brother down our corridor to test the shoulder rig, we did several shots with following him and feet shots, so I put the camera on the ground and he walked away and also a POV of his feet while walking. These shots are practices of the shots I want to do on the day as they give me more to edit with rather than just POV just in case its not steady enough.

Fiction Adaptation: Cast and Location Change

Unfortunately I have had to change my location and cast for my film as the people who applied to be in my film on the starnow website did not fit my main character and my location fell through, so I decided to go back to my home back in Essex to call on some people to help and I found an actor in my family quickly and the young boy is a friend of the family as was very happy to star in his first film, the church location worked with me to organise a day in which to film and was happy to help out. This I felt was a quick turn around but worked well and I managed to get good shots which I am happy with, I had to cut 2 locations and only really film at the church and in the field but I feel that I will have enough footage and hopefully won't struggle.