Copy Cat Task Planning & Production

 

Upon deciding that I wished to film a scene from 'Peaky Blinders' for this task, I didn't actually post any cast notices. I had initially only talked with my friend Geoffrey and upon discovering his own love for 'Peaky Blinder' we decided to do the scene together. This was quite lucky as I knew I could trust Geoffrey to work on the scene and knew his skills as an actor. Once we focused in on which scene we wanted to film we knew we needed another cast member to play 'Arthur'. At this point I approached Harley West to ask if he would be interested in performing this scene with Geoffrey and I. One of the reasons I had approached Harley was that I had seen him act before in class and when we were rehearsing 'The Witches' from these experiences I knew he was a good actor, that I would trust to play this role. 

Originally, Owen Palfreeman, a Year One from the Film and TV class was our director for the copy cat task. Unfortunately he was not available on the day we were to film and we had to reschedule and find new crew members. It was at this point I asked Hollie Whelan to be our new editor and director. I knew Hollie from the previous year and we had in fact worked together on a John Lewis esque, Christmas Ad. I was really proud of this ad from the previous year and I knew we could trust Hollie to do a good job. Similarly I knew our camera operators Sam Luke and Adrian Everest from the previous year and that they worked well with Hollie already. With this we had our cast and crew ready to film.

I didn't contact any of the makeup artists for this task. This was because I felt the scene didn't really need any as all of the cast needed to look natural. I might decide to use one anyway in future as this is what would happen on a real set, when lighting or anything else might cause the use for a makeup artist.

When we were filming we had to change locations due to noise interference and therefore had to move our props more than once. It was very important that we did so safely, we didn't want any of our crew to injure themselves. In order to do so we made sure the doors from our different locations were already open, so nobody would injure themselves trying to both open a door and carry a table. When carrying tables we made sure there was two people per table and used safe handling methods. Which are very obvious but important. Such as lifting with the legs and not your back and making sure you have a good grip and can still see before lifting anything. We also made sure to keep our props organised, we didn't just have tables and chairs, we used a glass jug, glasses, papers, etc. The props were always put in safe places and were not moved or used unless necessary. The actual filming equipment was put together by our crew, who were all Year Two Film and TV students. This means we knew the equipment was put together professionally allowing for less risk of any hazards or accidents.

When it came to post production Hollie did a brilliant job of editing and putting together the different shots to make a powerful scene. There wasn't a lot of post production work needed as there wasn't any music, effects or colour correcting needed. What Hollie did do was use the right audio for the different shots to make sure every member of the casts voices were clear.