WEEK 1:
After a definitive script-writing session with Julia and Javier, pre-production has officially started for the team. Despite this marking the true beginnings of production, I have been tirelessly working behind the scenes to keep Murder at Curtain Call en-route to production – writing up, and sending out casting calls, contacting locations, and organising audition tapes. However, the preparation has not slowed down. With unreliability regarding actors, locations and schedules, sudden complications are always likely to occur... and they did. Beginning with a lack of favourable male actors, quickly leading to scheduling issues with the agreed-upon cast, one of our main actors had no choice but to drop out. Alongside this, due to differing opinions within the team, we lost the opportunity to reserve our most efficient location. Although this week was met with a lot of unfortunate events, I was able to confirm 4 main cast members, and work with Julia to settle upon dates in which each cast member could attend. As well as this, we discussed our current budget and how much could be spent on locations. This made it significantly easier to contact locations regarding the shoot, and the specific dates. The team also had the opportunity to take centre stage in front of the camera and present themselves to our audience.
WEEK 2:
This week has been a week of finalising locations. In spite of last week’s issues, Julia and I have been working together to come to a decision on a new location, making the best use of our budget on a space which could be used in combination as a setting and accommodation. Alongside this, The Blue Room has been confirmed for the shoot dates. This location had been decided on fairly early within pre-production since we have previously worked in this building for shooting the Murder at Curtain Call Promotional Video. I was able to organise a meeting with Tony Richards regarding the use of the studio for one of our most pivotal scenes – the scene of the crime. After a short discussion, I was able to secure the location for half a day, which will offer plenty of time to film the required shots. The film’s opening sequence had been decided on prior to the finalisation of the script. This sequence would present a montage of the dimly lit streets of Lincoln, as we are introduced to the characters, location, and genre of the film. Since this had been agreed upon, I was able to contact the council early with street names, risk assessments and liability agreements which would affirm our ability to film these streets within the months of February and March. Once we had agreed upon the script, it also became official that we would need to make use of a beach. Last week I began scouting for beaches which would be suitable for this scene, ensuring that these spaces would be as little affected by pedestrians as possible. This week, after confirming which beach we wanted to use, I contacted the Northeast Lincolnshire Council to request permission for the use of Fitties Beach, just outside of Cleethorpes. Outside of settling locations, I was able to organise equipment for the shooting of our opening sequence, as well as a test shoot the following day. I also made sure to keep our actors up to date with scripts, shoot dates and information regarding travel and accommodation.
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