PMP Production Report

For my PMP I produced a short film that I wrote about a young couple who are involved in an incident where they accidently hit someone with their car after they have just been drinking at a party. In the heat of the moment they bundle the man into the back of their car and take him prisoner. Everything starts to go wrong as the man breaks his leg and needs immediate medical attention but the pair are too afraid to take him to hospital because of the trouble they might get in.
I had a few different ideas before I decided on this one. One for another short film that followed a man who was training to run a marathon which didn't include any dialogue and 2 ideas for music videos. One for the song "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John which followed a young boy through his life as he moved into a new house in LA and the other to the song was for the song "Stiches" by Shawn Mendes which would follow a man who has just been dumped in his efforts to become a professional boxer and win a Title match.
I decided to go with my first idea as I believed that would be the most interesting and most challenging idea to complete. I was also able to use a location that was perfect for the story line as I had access to an old house that had not been lived in for quite a while. This was perfect for what I needed and matched the story line perfectly making it seem like too good of an opportunity to missed.
There were also reasons as to why I could not have possibly made the other ideas. For example we could not have gone to film in LA so that immediately through the Tiny Dancer idea out of the window. The other short film idea was also not possible to create as there were no marathons anywhere near the time that we had to film and so this was also scrapped but this would be something that I would be interested in doing in the future.
After I had pitched my idea and taken feedback I began to write the script and bring a team together.
The script came along very nicely and I quickly made progress. After my first draft I received some feedback from my teacher and peers I made the changes that they suggested and began to look at which acting students would fit each role.
Sorting cast and crew was a fairly easy part of the production. For the crew all I needed to do was think back to when I have worked with others in the past and make my decisions based on that. This was very easy as we have created a huge amount of work for the course.
The actors were a little more difficult to decide on as I had only worked with the now 2nd year acting students in the past. So I decided that it was a good idea to go and see one of there shows to kind of scout out the best talent. I also asked other acting students and the first year film and TV students, who had worked with them already to produce their end of year films, who they thought was the best and so eventually I reached my decision of casting Sol, Sophie and Connor. I had seen all of these people act in their Christmas production and noticed them as stand out performers and had also heard great things about them from other people.
The pre-production process also went very well. I started by gathering research that could be used in the creation of the script. Things such as compound fractures and the punishment for causing injury by drunk driving were things that helped me to build my script and to help direct my actors reactions. I then started to gather information about the locations and create paperwork such as risk assessments, call sheets and shots list that would be hugely helpful during the production faze.
I also gave my script to the make up artist that was responsible for organising all of the make up and coming up with designs for things such as the broken leg.
The production faze for the most part went very well although we did run into some problems and technical difficulties which were out of my control.
The first shoot went very well. We began make up at 6:30pm and began filming at around 8pm. We filmed until 11pm and looking at the footage we shot some great stuff. The lighting was perfect and everyone conducted their roles excellently. I did slightly go over schedule on that day but It was worth it in the end.
The second shooting day did not start well at all. My actors were instructed to arrive at college at 9am so that we could be on set for 9:30. Unfortunately one of my actors slept through his alarm and did not show up to college at all. My makeup artist had forgotten the fake blood from college and there was no way for us get in due to it being bank holiday Monday. She had to buy supplies from a shop in order to make fake blood meaning that she didn't get to college until around 9:40.
We arrived on set at 10am 30 minutes behind schedule and then had to wait a further 20 minutes for make up to be completed. We began as soon as we could and got 3 scenes completed whilst waiting for my 3rd cast member to arrive. I had to send a member of our crew to collect him as he didn't have away to get to the location. He arrived on set at 12am and began to get his make up done. because of his lateness we lost 2 hours of filming time and were unable to film everything that was necessary. Thankfully all the footage that we did manage to get looked very good and was captured at high standard to match the scene that we had previously filmed. I will have to find a new day to film the scenes that we missed out of which there was 3 in total. 
The 3rd shoot went much more smoothly and we managed to get exactly what we needed at a much faster pace. This put me back on track and ready to film the last 2 scenes necessary to complete the filming process. 
Our 4th and final shoot also went very well we managed to film everything else that we needed and that wrapped up filming for roads. We also managed to re-film the footage that I realised that had gone missing when I started to edit my project together.
 During the editing process I also ran into a huge issue. I discovered that some vital pieces of my footage had gone missing this presented me with a huge problem as we then had to  figure out how we could work around this in the best way possible. I tried everything to try and retrieve my missing footage but there is absolutely no trace of it to be found.
I also had a few issues with casting after filming my first scene.
One of my main cast members dislocated his knee cap. We thought that he would be unable to shoot the rest of the film meaning that I would have to recast and reshoot what I had already filmed with a new cast member unless he some how made a miraculous recovery before our next planned shoot on Tuesday...
I managed to recast and reschedule so everything was back on track although filming would be finished later than initially intended. I have re-did all of my pre-production to match the new schedule and cast that I had got together.
My previous cast member made a miraculous recovery and was able to walk around without his splint on. This means that we didn't have to re-shoot and could continue with the original cast. However that did mean that all the paperwork I re-did was now redundant and I  had to create more to match the slightly altered schedule. This also meant that although we had our original cast were still behind our original schedule.
From this production I have learnt that I must have a better contingency plan because although I managed to reshoot everything that was required and reschedule when necessary it was a very stressful time and was very hard to manage. I am also definitely going to back up all of my future footage so that in the event of footage magically disappearing it is backed up and we will not have to re-shoot.
Overall I believe that I have been very successful in managing the production period and I do not believe that anything that went wrong could have been fixed by me being a better producer. Everything that went wrong during my shoot was unfortunately out of my control. This isn't a goof thing in my opinion as I would much rather it be my fault that everything didn't go smoothly so that I am able to fix it but the production was not perfect due to situations and events that I could not change.
I feel like I have been excellent at problem solving during the production and I have made sure that all filming has been of a high quality.