We were completely unprepared for our first shoot day.
My group and I had originally thought that we could film all three scenes in the one day, but ended up only being able to film the two that were in the same location. We thought that we were put together and prepared for the shoot, having our roles set, but we weren’t.
Everyone was given a role, and it was written down in our shared google drive, but these roles were not really undertaken properly. No one actually partook in their specific roles, therefore making the set a bit of a mess. As great as my group is, our pre-production was a failure. We went into the shoot thinking would be okay, but it took far longer than expected due to my lack of ‘daily schedule’ preparation in my role as the First AD.
When filming, we lacked in our shot list. The lack of details, preparation and ideas of what we wanted and how it was going to look ended up in bad lighting, sound (due to location) and, well, location. We had not scouted our location properly beforehand, and just decided on an empty study space in building 9. This was a common room, in which many people were wanting to walk in and out of, or were walking up the hall. These sounds, along with the opening and shutting of doors really effected our ability to work effectively and productively, as our quality of work was not up to standard.
On a positive note: our actors were incredible and greatly depicted each of their characters. Their costuming and makeup perfected represented each of their characters, giving them an edge and a sense of their personas. It is very possible to say that their performances is what really saved our pilot.
Despite these dramas, we did have a wonderful time nonetheless. I’m so utterly glad to have experienced all of these mishaps in our pilot episode, because at least now we know how to better ourselves (especially during post-production) and what to expect for the next episode that we film.
