Evaluation of filming.

On the 13th September Michelle and I had a phone call with the cinema owner and he informed us that if we wanted the cinema to ourselves we should arrive and begin filming from 9:30am to 12:00pm before their screening. These times applied for the Saturday and Sunday. Obviously that wasn't a very long time but it meant we had to be even more prepared and efficient during filming. This was one of the obstacles we excepted as we were filming in a public place. Below are some of the key things that went really well but also things that could have been improved on.

Things that went well during filming:

• We had full access to most parts of the cinema, including the Projector room. We didn't have to adapt hardly any parts of our storyboard because of this.
• We had control over the lighting of the cinema from the Projector room. This meant that each shot we could adapt our lighting and create the right mood we wanted to convey. We were very fortunate to have this facility. We decided to make the most of this luxury and icorporated flickering lights in to the scene where the fire alarm rings. It really enhanced the mood and made the scene tenser.
• We managed to film all of the shots we needed and stuck to the time frame we were given by the cinema. Therefore we portrayed a good professional image to the cinema workers who were lovely enough to let us film in there to begin with.

Things that could have gone better during filming:

• One of the main issues we had was that the cinema wasn't completely shut off. We didn't realise that the cinema was attached to a Museum next door and the Museums toilets were connected to the cinema. Therefore some of our shots had to be delayed as we constantly had people walking through to use the toilets and there was nothing we could do about it. Some of the staff in the Museum also found it quite irritating as we had to film some shots near their building. I think to have stopped this situation from happening we could have pre-warned the Museum a few days before our filming so that they could have then prepared themselves for what we would be doing. This means that they would have been more aware of everything that was happening and not felt as confused and irritated as to what two young students were doing with a camera. This would then have stopped their distress but also allowed us to get on with our filming more effectively.
• Another issue we had was that due to a certain circumstance we didn't have an actor to play the real, 'Mr Arnold' therefore we were left with a tight amount of time and no actor. Luckily, we resolved the issue by calling our friends granddad and he was willing to play the small part. It was fortunate that he was available and also a very good actor who seemed to fit the part perfectly. This situation could have been avoided if we had a backup actor already on hold. However, it didn't affect the quality of our film or slow us down that much in any way.

Overall, I feel that the two days at the cinema went extremely well. It was such an amazing experience to film in such a historic place. Michelle and I felt like we were real film producers with a large budget as we couldn't believe how lucky we were to have access to such a photogenic place. We are now currently organising our footage and getting ready to start editing. I'm sure that we will wish some of our shots could be slightly different but realistically it was very difficult to get everything perfect in the small time frame we had in the cinema. I'm sure that most of our shots will be successful, however we may run into a few issues with background sound/ lighting etc. From here, we will begin to slowly pieces our film together from our steady cam and hand held footage and create a very unique thriller/Mockumentary.