Shooting diary/Planning diary

Day 1 – Monday 17^th October 2011 at 1.15pm.

Today we wanted to film a few scenes from the school section of the song. The main problem we had was that we didn’t actually film anything. This is because we were about to film and started discussing different shots we could do, from doing this we wasted 2 hours. On the other hand, from this experience we have planned the other days we want to film a lot better and thought about the shots we want to use to save time. Also, we were not very well organised as we only brought the camera and not the correct props with us.

Day 2 – Monday 24th October 2011 at 9.05am.

Today we wanted to film as much as we could inside the house. We honestly didn’t have many problems with this day of filming; one thing that could have gone better is that we used our time more effectively. Also, the camera battery kept dying, this could not have been stopped as the camera was fully charged at the beginning of the day, it was just the amount of filming we did. To avoid wasting anymore time, while we had lunch we left the camera plugged into the laptop to charge. This charged the camera for around an hour more, but we had to keep having 10 minute breaks waiting for the camera to charge. On the plus side, we filmed a lot! We got really good scenes that we are both happy with and thought of more and better ideas whilst filming that we had not thought of before. We also did a few different shots so we have a choice when editing to see which one looks better. Alex changed outfits twice during filming. The first outfit was a colourful dress to show the girls immaturity and fun side. The second was a black dress as this ties into the lyrics where it says she threw all the colour away. Alex also wore glasses as we wanted the audience to find out more of the girls personality through her outfit.

Day 3 – Friday 28th October 2011 at 9.05am.

Today we wanted to film in Billericay for the line that says ‘she skipped down the road’ and ‘in her own world’. Again, not a lot went wrong for this day of filming. The only thing that could have gone better was using our time effectively as when we got a lift to Billericay we went straight to our location, we then had to go to a toy shop where we bought a packet of multi-coloured magnetic alphabet and bubbles which was the other side of the high street. We then had to walk all the way back down to the station to get the train back to Mary’s house. This could have been stopped by thinking what we needed when we were that side of the high street instead of wasting time that we could have spent filming. Surprisingly, quite a lot went right for us. We found very good locations in Billericay we used for scenes that we didn’t have many ideas for, including a duck pond which looked extremely good when we filmed and all the ducks came over. The props we used for this day of filming were multi-coloured alphabet letters and bubbles we purchased that day, glasses and different outfits.

Day 4 – Friday 4^th November 2011 at 10am.

Today we wanted to finish the last of all the filming. We filmed the rest of the scenes from the school as I had a different outfit on that was smarter which would be perfect for a school scene. There was one problem we had which was that Alex forgot the ‘geek’ glasses so every scene we wanted to film ended up being an over-the-shoulder shot or from the back so the audience will not notice that we didn’t have the glasses. We filmed the scene where it says ‘the girls there, they looked at her and thought she was quite strange’ in the song. For this, we filmed a close up of Alex’s face with 3 girls sitting on a bench in the background pointing and laughing at her. Another scene we filmed today was with the crosswords where it says ‘she always got the crossword puzzles right everyday’. For this we filled a table up of already done crosswords and filmed Alex filling in the last one to show that Mariella does them daily. We did not use any props on this day as we couldn't film much anyway. Alex's dress was the only outfit we used that day.

Day 5 - Monday 14th November at 9.05am.
We were supposed to film most of the scenes that we had left, which was the first verse and a few lines in the middle. We didn't get to film today as Mary was not well and did not attend school which meant we could not film. We are going to re-schedule a date for us to finish filming.

Day 6 - Wednesday 23rd November at 9.05am.
Today we filmed everything at Mary's house, this included the first verse, chorus. We didn't film the school scene as we ran out of time and thought we could do that another time as their was no rush for this scene. The part that we did film went extremely well and we were finished by 2.30pm. The only problem we had on this day of filming is that Alex forgot the tripod. This seemed like a problem than thought. Instead we just used books and propped the camera on tables to keep it still. Considering we didn't have a tripod the filming went very well.  

Day 7 -  Friday 25th November at 1.15pm.
Today's filming went very well. As we only had two scenes to film, it only took us around an hour to film. We filmed the line 'the they're not really into girls at that age' and 'the teachers they thought Mariella was just going through a phase'. Everything went to plan. Mary went home after the first scene as she was ill, but Alex's friend pressed record and knew what we were doing.


Day 8 - Monday 28th November at 1.15pm.