Picking Up

Post from a couple of weeks ago after pick-ups I forgot to post:

Just finished two days of pick-ups and feeling good about them. Saturday we shot 12 pages! Well done everyone, haven't done that since the madness of Day 1, way back when. We even managed to grab a couple of cool little extras with Patrick O'Donnell. He had only come in to (SPOILER!!!) lie unconscious in the background, but sure while he was around we threw in a few extra bits and pieces.

We picked up all the shots we dropped with Brian Fortune and Michael Bates, important scenes that needed the time by themselves, really the moral centre of the film. So I was glad to have the time just to concentrate of them. Admittedly we spent a long time concentrating on them!!! I thought we'd be finished the day's shoot at 9pm, maybe 10pm! We went till 3am!!! But that's nothing new. Still, it was good, we were getting nice stuff and remaining creative, even at the end of a very long day.

One lesson I've learned on this one, some worth baring in mind, for a reasonable day of shooting, where you're not stretching yourself, rushing, running into silly hours, 4 pages is probably realistic - and if it's a complicated fight scene, maybe just do that in a day. Although, in saying that, Derelict probably would have taken a month, of shooting everyday, and when people are working for free, giving generously of the time and talent, a month would just be impossible to ask. I hope I get the chance to repay, and pay everyone who worked on this with a paid gig at some point, and not one that's crammed into a short time period, but has room to breathe!

Again, in saying that, we got great stuff and for an ultra-low budget film shoot in a week, I think we did OK.

Today was complicated, we were shooting day-for-night (that's when you shoot during the day and colour it to look like night - quite common in film and when done right unnoticeable) So that meant we were burning daylight. We already lost the morning be we shot so late yesterday, giving us 5 hours to do 4 pages. Doable, sure, but again, fight scenes, and a stunt. Fights get fiddly. We were belting along, get stuff in the can one shot after another. But it's just incredible how time slips by on a film set.

So, we unfortunately ran out of sun before we were done and had to drop the end of one shot and another (short) scene entirely. We have to go back anyway so better to do it right than do something rushed, or unusable. It also meant we finish at 5pm, which was lovely!

Still one day to go. Feeling good about it overall and looking forward to getting back and finishing.