1940's shoot

Today we filmed the first part of our 1940's bomb shelter scene. We wanted to use two locations for this particular section of our film, (creating an almost reverse tardis like effect) in order to include both, exterior authenticity - using a real 1940's bunker (for stylistic purposes), and also keep the shot cramped and atmospheric - using a 'cubed under the stairs' to show to mimmic war-time 'make do and mend' spirit -using this smaller space, more intimate space would thus enable us to stress the difficulty of living in Blitzed London Town. We felt that spending a lot of time discussing and debating the finer contextual details of each scene was really important - for a production like our own skimping on mis en scene & historical accuracy would deter from our post modern style, and also weaken our narrative's strength & clarity. Both props & performance ability were extremely key for this scene. As we were using a very limited space we needed the actors attire to look passable (for 40's wear) and the actors themselves to be confident & believable in their actions. Thus we decided to use x2 year 10 drama students as our 'air raid children', hoping that by acquiring capable & experienced actors that we would be able to obtain and mutual relationship between actor & director, rather than wasting shooting time overly coaching our cast. Over all the shoot went really well; we faced a one easily avoidable problem, but it was quickly resolved - for example : we couldn't use the tripod due to the fact that the support was missing. Therefore we had to 'keep calm and carry on' and just make do with hand held footage, keeping our grip stead, and making our shots longer & more varied in order to get all of the necessary footage. The actors all worked together really comfortably & effectively, having a high standard of acting & concentrated work will make the editing process so much easier, in that we will only have to rely upon our own motivation & efforts & skill in order to create a high quality final piece. Due to our minimalistic set and cramped filming space I feel that the footage we captured today  is probably (so far) some of the most authentic - we didn't need to dress / rely upon a vast set to make it look perceivable and we avoided (& saved time) spending shooting time moving lots of objects which wouldn't contextually fit in the era - for example on our 1920's shoot, we had to exclude the plastic table cloth & coloured photographs. 

SHOOT COSTUMES & PROPS & EQUIPMENT 
Rhianna - Navy-Blue dress, white knitted cardigan, long grey cotton socks, hair plaited.
Esme - Sky-Blue floral dress, custard yellow knitted cardigan, long black socks, red hair ribbon, hair in plaits. 
Laura - Floral cream / peachy coloured dress, green knitted jumper, long grey socks, hair in bunches.
WW2 gas mask box
Blankets
Camera
Tripod 
Bible - entertainment during the air-raid 
Matches 
Candles 
Teddy bear & Rag Doll 


RISK ASSESSMENTS 
Because we were using matches in a small annex space, we had to be extremely careful that none of our cast & crew got burned or acted irresponsibly around the flames. We secured a set place that any used matches would be placed - a wooden surface away from flammable materials, and we made sure the candles only stayed lit for a short period of time & that they were properly extinguished after use (and later disposed of carefully and properly). Most of our over shoots have been relatively low risk & sitting down and going over safety precautions has not been a necessity, but today it was vital!

  - InteriorShooting

        - 1940's authenticity

         - Costumes & Props

 Hair & Makeup