Shot List & Storyboard UPDATE | Development

Shoot week isn't that far away, so myself and Nisserin decided it would be a good idea to revisit the Shot List & Storyboard and see if there were any changes that needed to be made.
When looking at the document we found that some of the shot sizes and pictures were different as to what we wanted, and we decided to make some changes. We had the shot list, storyboard & blocking images up and we made sure to change them all at the same time, in order to help everything make sense.

Scene 1 has always been a complicated scene to block due to not knowing where we were going to shoot it, or how big the space we are using was going to be. Now we know we're shooting in the studios, and we also know we'll be shooting on one side of the studio floor. This made it so much easier for me and Nisserin to block out actors and the camera positions.

We decided to move around the actors and have Dean in one corner, Marie & the boss in the other corner and Annie roughly in the middle. This meant we could get a shot of each character in each camera, and we'd have enough footage to work with. Once this was completed, we started to change the shot list based on where our cameras and characters are now placed.

The blocking aided us in a really effective way as we could easily decide what camera should be on what shot and we would cut to each shot in the editing. We've still got a few more weeks until we shoot this scene so this shot list and blocking might change, but for now Nisserin and I are very happy with how this scene will play out.
We still haven't visited the location for Marie's house, so we couldn't do much to the shot list for this scene, but we worked with the knowledge we had and tried to make the shot list clear and effective for us.

We mainly focused on the scenes set in Annie & Dean's location, as these were the scenes we'll be filming soon. We changed some of the blocking, but some of them were already the way we thought would work best.
For scenes 6, 7 & 8, the shots on the shot list were different as to what we thought would work better the second time round, so we changed that on the shot list. Luckily, the blocking was correct so that didn't need to be changed or adjusted.

This situation was similar to scenes 9 & 10, the blocking was pretty much the same, but the shot list was different. The shot list in the pre-production book had a lot more of Annie in the shots, and we wanted the main focus to be on Dean and Betty. We changed the positioning of Annie after Betty comes into the room, and we changed where Dean stands when he talks to Annie at the beginning so it seems more realistic and natural. There also seemed to be a lot of unnecessary shots that we didn't need, especially in scene 10, so we decided to condense the amount of shots we need, which will help the editing process easier.

The first shot list we had was based on draft 6 of the script, which has obviously changed so we had to adjust the shot list so it matched the last script draft. It made the shot list a lot shorter as we had a lot of unnecessary shots again, and it meant we could really focus on the story we wanted to tell. The blocking had to be changed to fit the script, and to fit the new camera positioning we wanted for scene 11.

One of the problems we found with this scene was seeing the characters faces. We weren't sure if going through the windows would be a good look or not, so we decided to stay indoors and film scene 11 similar to how we're going to shoot scene 9. This will probably the most difficult scene in terms of showing the action and the storyline progressing, but we're going to try and do it the best that we can and hope it turns out ok.

We updated the rest of the shot list based on our most recent script, and we changed some of the shots for scene 17. We decided that we wanted to see this film shot from 2 shots only - one would be from the crew camera's perspective and the other would be from a wide shot outside of the house. We discussed how it might look a bit odd going in and out of the crew camera, and we agreed that we would just show the scene from that camera, until Jordan Hamsay leaves. When directing the actor of Jordan Hamsay, I will need to tell him to look at the crew camera and at Dean so we see some of his face and his interaction with Dean and Annie.

The shot list is now up to date with the blocking of each scene, and it matches the newest version of the script. This helps us when visualising each scene, which in turn makes us feel a lot more prepared and ready for our shoot week.
Without the shot list & blocking being updated, we would've struggled with visualising the scenes, and our shoot week would be a lot more stressful and chaotic than it needs to be. I'm happy with how we have blocked every scene, and I hope it all turns out the way we hope it will.