The shoot was a huge learning process. I was covering every role: runner; assistant director; Sparks; gaffer; Director of photography; Producer; projection playback; props; continuity; wardrobe; and director. The shoot itself was three days, meaning my time was spent very thin on each aspect of the production which inevitably diminished my ability to direct.
The day before the first day of shooting I realised I did not have the time to shoot everything on my script and so cut one of the characters and her scenes from the script. This was very necessary but difficult as I did not want to disappoint the actress and I had already made all of the backgrounds for her scene. The first day of the shoot went well until I got home and realised I had shut everything onto high and ISO and as such had to reshoot everything. The morning of the second day one of the leading actress is called in sick. She offered to reschedule but because I was renting lights and relying on other people being available I decided I could not rely on having her there to reshoot. How character was Tracy, who has managed her mind with the machines and become a part of them. Her key prop was the headset which she had one in the previous film Circuit Breaker. I therefore made the decision to make Tracy a robot and draped a tablecloth over a lighting stand and stuck the headset to the lighting stand. I then had one of the other actors lying under the table waggling Tracy to give her a sense of life, I will do I voice-over with the original actress once I have a cut together.
The first day I shot a scene I had rehearsed with the actors previously, as such I was able to direct them rather than teaching them the lines. However, on the second day we shot scenes I had not rehearsed with them and they had not learn their lines on their own time. This caused big problems as instead of directing their actions my time was spent teaching them their lines and so rather than being able to perfect sense I had to use whatever take they got their lines right. This was massively disappointing and will impact the quality of the shoot majorly. The third day was very rushed and we had to do some re-shoots from the previous day which I had not given enough time to you on the second day.
After reviewing the footage at home I realised I had not got all the coverage I needed from being so rushed and the actors not learning the lines, and so I did a pic update wear short for half a day to get the coverage I needed.
The key lessons I learned were: have a crew and actors you can rely on; plan everything to a minute detail; have people around to help; and fully test all the equipment and ideas before the actual shoot.