Filming: The Aborted Mission of the Drama Studio, Improvisation and The Subway

I'd like to say this day went well, but the level of difficulties we faced dropped from a 'well' to a 'not well'. However, I was tremendously proud of our intuitive and our motivation even when things were not looking so bright.

So as planned, we visited the school upon solid grounds of Simren sending Mr Piggot an email regarding our arrival as well as the permission to use the studio. Yet, little did we know that the deserted, flying tumbleweed school was in fact a problem for our filming. Apparently Mr Piggot sent an email on the morning of our arrival, informing us that supervision of a teacher was required and unfortunately was not provided, thus resulting in the cancelling of using the drama studio.

We solemnly walked to our friend’s house to collect the equipment, with the question occupying everyone's mind, what are we going to do now?

I suggested we could go to a studio we were previously looking at for our filming, but the environment of the studio- we all agreed upon without hesitation- did not suit the song, nor our aim. So, Asfah set her cards down, by laying out the idea of using her bedroom blank wall and we found ourselves walking back to Asfah's home.

After lunch, kindly prepared by Asfah's mother (and oh so delicious), we set to work, improvising as best as we could. Close-ups, mid-shots, low angle, high angle, everything we though fit, we did with the majority being master shots. We even went to the extent of placing raw onion under our Artists eye, in order to achieve the extreme close up shot of a tear falling, which I am glad to say looked amazing on the camera.

After that, we headed outside to test the positioning of the camera in preparation for smashing the glass by smashing ice. After a few trials of that, we removed the training wheels and the two sugar glass tablets (you could say), were brought out. Our first smash did not end well as only half of the impact was recorded, the second smash, however, was in the frame and perhaps the highlight of our exhausting day.

Our next location was The Subway, now this was a public place, therefore the general public would use this rite of passage, which funnily enough they did. This was not much of a problem as having filmed at Boulters Lock for my previous two minute opening you learn to avoid the weird glances and stares people sometimes throw you, as well as avoid getting in their way. We followed our shot list and any additional shot ideas were also filmed, one of which was the glitter, where we had our artist standing in the middle of the subway (where of course the lighting was key), our camera set up on the tripod and the four of us out of the frame with uncapped lids of glitter tubes used to throw at the artist.