Filming 'Angel on Fire' - Day One Diary

Saturday 9th December, 11:00-19:00

This was our very first day of filming!

Due to cold and rainy weather, we began the production day with the inside dinner party scene. All outdoor shots were left to be filmed in the evening (for the purposes of the dark).

I arrived at around 11am and helped Erika with her makeup and costume. Here, I was shown the dinner table setting Erika set up and it was exactly as planned. Using the storyboard, we set up and framed the camera for the first shot of the day, waiting for our extra actress, Lyjan, to arrive to begin filming.

Once she arrived, we were straight into filming! We played the 1.5x speed version of the song and changed the frame rate of the camera to 50fps so we could slow down the footage in edit to create a playback lip sync effect. I had a go at using the steadicam for a professional and smooth shot to fit with the slow motion. However I found that both the steadicam and camera put together were too heavy for me and the shots turned out the opposite of steady. After a few attempts, we came to the decision to attempt to film without a steadicam which, in the end, worked much better. In this shot, I carried out a pull focus and a slow pan into Erika as she sat at the dining table and lip synced to the second verse of the song. We took many takes of this (about 10 even, I believe!) until we got a few shots we were 100% happy with.

Erika then took over the camera while I appeared in front of it. I wasn't as prepared as she was! I attempted to act out a fake conversation with Lyjan which may have taken a few tries as I had to reallyamplify my actions and reactions. Even if we were just talking about Biology tests, I had to laugh and be happy! We repeated the same process for Lyjan chatting away and then it was time to put the camera on a tripod as all three of us were going to appear on screen.

This shot was super fun to make. In the post-production process, we want to speed the footage up to make it appear as if Lyjan and I were ghost-like. For this, we needed at least 3 minutes of  Erika staying still as Outlex, feeling ignored while we walked around the setting talking and drinking, just enjoying the party without even noticing her. This took several attempts as keeping a straight face for that long of a time was a challenge for Erika!

Another scene we captured was an argument between Erika and Lyjan. To create a realistic argument illusion, I had the difficult task of not laughing (which would have resulted in a shaky camera) while they screamed nonsense about YouTube or something else. ("A 0.5 SECOND APPEARANCE IN REWIND WAS NOT RESPECTFUL," and "EVERYONE WAS PROBLEMATIC IN 2012 NOT JUST THEM" - honestly, just don't ask what any of it means). Eventually, the perfect shot was achieved and we moved on to working with sticky notes.

Theses sticky notes had loving messages such as "No one cares" and "Die" which was really fun to write When it came to filming with this prop, I was behind the camera and Lyjan was dropping the sticky notes over Erika as she sat at the table. We also carried out other shots of Outlex discovering the sticky note for the first time and more accumulating around her.

Next followed the trickiest of shots that day - breaking a glass champagne flute. To get the shot, I stood and quickly tracked down as the glass fell and smashed on the floor, dangerously close to me. This turned out only semi-successfully as we managed to miss most of the glass breaking on the floor but it still remains a usable shot which is successful enough in our books!

After a well deserved food break, we cracked down on the last few shots of the day. The first step was converting Erika to the dark side: changing Outlex into the anxiety figure. A grunge hoodie and smudged makeup later, we filmed lip syncing and writing mean message sticky notes. Once this was done, the indoor scenes were complete!

Filming the intro to the video did not take as long as the dinner party scene. This involved Erika walking out of the house and sitting on the step by the door, which, in editing with sound effects, will show that she has walked out of a party. Many of the shots were low angle to portray her character as weak and inferior, but we also included POV shot of her discovering a VHS tape with her name on it and reaching out to get it. This took a few tries as I found getting the right camerawork  was challenging - juggling a focus shift, tracking and steady camera movement is a tough job! We got there in the end and that was a wrap for our first day of filming!

In terms of our next steps, we have completed test shots in the studio which will be our next production day. After the studio aspect is complete, we will focus on hilltop, riverside, street and Soho scenes individually.

A successful and fun first day to the say the least!