Filming ~ Day 1 | Production

First day of shooting:

26th November 2016

The shoot was scheduled to start at 10am, so to prepare myself I decided to rearrange the bedroom we were shooting in, to make it more suitable for my desired set design. I moved some furniture out of the way, I took a few framed pictures off the wall so they were left bare, and I made sure all of the equipment and objects that weren't needed in the shot, were behind the camera and out of sight.

Once the actress and rest of the crew arrived to the set, we started to shoot. 

• Before the shoot day, I made sure to put the different shots in order of what is being shot first. I made sure to keep the location into consideration, so the decisions I made kept the day running smoothly.
• I started with all of the scenes in the bedroom, like the covers tossing and turning, the text on the mirror, the record player and the shots of Micaiah sat on the bed with and without reading the letter. 

• The next location was the black plain background. To create this look I used a big black screen and put it up in my living room. I then placed a stool underneath the sheet laying on the floor, so the black colour would fill the screen. 
• In terms of the make-up on Micaiah, it was best if we shot the scenes where she's looking at the camera, and then shoot the similar scenes where mascara will be running down her face. At first I was only going to get the one shot of Micaiah in the middle of the screen, looking at the camera, but when shooting I decided to shoot two more shots where she was on the left side of the screen and the right side. When shooting the mascara scenes I only had Micaiah in the middle of the screen as I knew I wouldn't use those clips as often as the others.
• In between the shoot of the 'normal' face and the 'mascara' face, we made sure to get the shot of the lit candle in front of the black background. I lit the candle and blew it out once recording, and in post I will reverse that clip so it looks like the candle was un lit to begin with.
• We also shot the 'normal' skin and the 'beaten up' skin, in between the other scenes. To do this I had Micaiah standing up, and we used the camera handheld in order to distort the shots slightly. 
• The 'normal' skin shots were done, so we moved onto the 'beaten' skin. Make-up was used to create the beaten up skin effect, and bruises were created in the multiple spots of the body that we had previously shot. The same sort of shot was filmed for the 'beaten' skin so I could cut to the different shot in post. 

• Once those shots were completed  we shot the close-ups of certain words and phrases from the letter. To do this, I ripped up the previously written script and placed the different parts on my bed. For each shot I moved them around and placed the certain pieces of letter in a particular position to make it easier to see the words through the camera.
• To complete the last shot of the poem, I placed the pieces of the letter around the bed with the most important one in the middle. I then had the camera start quite close to that piece and then moved the camera upwards to create a distorted zooming out effect.
• These shots were shot in the bedroom, and the pieces of the letter were place upon the bed.

• To end the shooting day, we moved onto the bathroom. I only needed two shots for this location.
• The first shot was Micaiah looking into the mirror, and the second was her washing her hands under the tap. 
• We also then recorded the audio of Micaiah reading the poem and a few extra clips of dialogue that will be presented as the character talking to herself.