Voyeur- production-post-production

Production weekend


After the rehearsal on the evening before the shoot weekend, I knew we had chosen the right actors- they all knew each other well and had acted together many times. What began to worry me though, was the limited time we had for our two-man production team [plus another member who hasn't shown great commitment] to carry out the task ahead. The importance of having a well devised shooting schedule and to refer to it closely had never been more prominent to the success or failure of Voyeur.


We started the shoot early Saturday morning, with the most energetic and time consuming scene first- the fight.  This began with a scare- the boom mic wasn't receiving any sound, which for about half an hour, dampened spirits. After Craig's persistence, we were up and running, but our combat knife had broken during the rehearsals in between fixing the mic- so a new one had to be bought. This scene is set at night, so we bought black plastic bags to cover up the windows, which worked well as it allowed little shards of light through, but not too much.  The scene was shot in good time, and the choice to allow the actors to be free with how they pursued the acting of the fight scene really paid off, the directing of Craig and the improvisation from the actors really worked well together. 


 As we made our way into Bath city centre for the next couple of scenes, the real hard work began. We had the extra obstacle of the general public and had a lot of equipment to carry-wish I had bought a car now!  Time was very precious as I aimed to shoot the park scene in the warmth of the twilight sun [the golden hour] and get all the other shots done before then too. 


The weekend passed with a small amount of glitches and it has been a fantastic experience to work with a dedicated and enthusiastic team of actors. 


Post-production


The most time consuming task of the whole project-the edit. 
At first we spent a couple of hours here-and-there editing and researching music and sound effects, but then we realised that it wasn't proving beneficial. We began spending whole days in the editing suite which proved to carry the progression much better.


I would say that using a broadcast monitor over the weekend of the shoot would have saved a lot of time in the edit and colour correction process, because it would have shown up a more accurate image on screen. But without a car, it was a near impossibility to make use of one, which was a shame.


With no budget to spend, a major time consumer of the edit was finding the appropriate music for the mood I wanted to create.  There are many pieces of music to use on the Internet but a large quantity isn't free to use .


I would have liked to spend a little more time searching for music, but I think Craig and I have done well in finding the music we have done.


A good site to use for free music: http://www.jamendo.com/en/