Production: Shooting Day

Production went smoothly and effectively. Thankfully the weather held out. The first port of call when arriving at the location was the find a blind spot to place the kit securely. We placed it on the top of elevated ground above the area we were working in. behind the view of where the camera would be pointed. We then placed down a set of broken stone slabs for the fire; this was to ensure we didn't accidentally start a forest fire. We'd also brought a few filled bottles of water to put the fire out by then end of the shoot for safety precautions.

I then talked through the shot list with my Dad who would be the grip on location. Explaining in advance the sorts of shot I was looking for whilst I would be directing and acting. I then set about adjusting the white balance and exposure on the cameras we were using on the day. To do this, I brough along a white book to use as reference in order to receive pure white in the frame.

After this, we set about beginning the first few shots. We shot non-linear in accordance with the daylight we had. The shots that represented morning or midday were filmed first, then the shots that represented evening were filmed last. I would position myself for a scene and my dad took a snapshot before shouting action. I'd assess the snapshot to see if it was what I was looking for in the frame. If I worked, we would run the take.

When it came round to lighting the fire, we had gathered loads of dry grass and match stick sized twigs on the location recce a week prior to shooting. As bush craft expert Ray Mears states this is what should be done when lighting a fire in the wild. The take for actually lighting the fire with flint and steel took a while but when we got it going, it really burned so we only had a short amount of time to film what we needed.

Because of this short time with the fire, the second day of shooting consisted of adding patches for the end of the film. This being a scene where the protagonists face is light with an orange glow from fire. We did this by creating a static shot on a tripod in my back garden. We adjusted the frame to the right position using a phone light as a test. Then we lit the burning bin which we had better control over and could keep lit for longer. This allowed us to get a nice orange glow on the protagonist's face for the ending scene of the film.