On-going Actor Problems

Our film in made up of two characters; a Mother and a daughter, therefor it is important to find two actresses who can play the two different ages. We've decided to look at two different resources for our characters; the university drama course could help us find an actress of 18-21 to play Alice. However, we need an actress with a convincing playing age to portray the Mother character. Our producer, Kayleigh, has placed an advertisement on the Drama blackboard pace, and I also suggested she got in contact with some local drama production companies, in order to find an actress with a playing age of 30-35, to play Alice's Mother. So far, we have had a good response for the role of Alice; four girls have shown interest and are wanting to audition. We have only had one response however, for the role of the Mother, from a local production company; she does suit the part in terms of her age and appearance, and as a mother herself, she complimented the development of the two characters' on-screen relationship within the script, I think it would really help to have someone who knows the dynamics of a Mother-daughter relationship. We have arranged for her to audition with the four younger actresses, during the easter holidays, to see who can project the best and most convincing performance.

Update 1
A few days before we are to audition our actors, and only two have confirmed their availability; one actor for each character. It's not convenient, as it doesn't give us any other options to choose from, but we are hoping they will be able to play the characters well.

Update 2
Having auditioned both actors, we are very happy with their performance, and have offered them the parts. There is the small issue of still finding a new location, and fitting this around their availability, but we're hoping this won't prove to be too much of  a big issue.

Update 3
Unfortunately, Lucy (Alice) has informed us that her university timetable has changed, and her availability has become very limited. We have also had very little contact with Lauren (Mother), so we are getting a little worried about their reliability in terms of our filming dates. I think the best option at the moment is to keep looking for other people who could play our characters, just in case they one we have do let us down.

Update 4
As anticipated, both actresses have been unable to help us, there has been very little contact between them and Kayleigh; I do worry that her poor communication looked unprofessional to them, and in truth have actually just lost interest in our project, however I cannot be sure this is the case. We now have no actors at all. I feel that Kayleigh has lost interest in the project at this point, and is not willing to try and find anyone else. Michelina and I have taken it upon ourselves to find some new actresses. She has posted a new ad on the Drama blackboard, and I have advertised both roles on casting website, starnow.com. With five days before the booked film date, we are desperately hoping for responses.

Update 5 
As a result of my ad, I got a response for both characters. The first was Bethan, an english student who applied for the role of Alice, we arranged to audition her the next day. She looked perfect for the part, and expressed the dialogue very well, so we decided to cast her straight away. The other response I had was for the role of the Mother, we were happy to at least have an option, but she didn't look right for the part at all, and she has applied from London, and was expecting us to pay for her travel and accommodation expenses. We had already paid for the apartment to film in, where she could stay, but it would cost too much to pay for anything else, so initially decided against her. However, it was so close to our film date, we decided to go ahead and pay for her travel, something we hadn't anticipated for the project, but I was willing to do it anyway. As far as things are going now, we are on-track to film on Tuesday.

Update 6
Disaster has struck yet again, I received a message from our actress from London; she has broken her foot and is unable to travel. Despite this providing yet another major problem, I'm quite relieved we won't have to pay for an actress, who wasn't right for the part anyway. I have now come up with two different solutions depending on what happens; the first is to change the mother character to an older sister, as we seem to have had a better response from the younger actresses. If all else fails, I plan to re-write the script to just involve one physical character, and write the Mother in as a memory, although I am hoping that it will not come to this as it is a lot of extra work.

Update 7
Luckily, two days before filming, we have been able to find an actress to portray the character of an older sister, which only involved some small changes to the dialogue in the script. She has previously worked in another groups film, which has confirmed her reliability for us. We made it clear that we had to film on Tuesday without fail, and she reassured us that this wasn't a problem, and she would be able to learn her lines by then. Although there is the issue that she won't have much time to rehearse with her on-screen sister, we are happy that this last-minute change I have made has resulted in us having our two characters.

Shoot Day 1

Today we began shooting the final scene, where Alice takes her last paper crane to the riverside. We chose to film this in Endcliffe park on Eccelsall road, because we were able to access this quieter area beside the river. It was a rather over-cast day, with some sunny intervals, and filming below a fairly dense area of tree branches provided some lighting challenges. We did make the decision to bring a reflector board with us, which turned out imperative to the shoot, I think we were able to make this work in our favour. There was only a small amount of dialogue in this scene (the poem) but we had no one to record, so the sounds did get neglected. We are having to re-record and dub the sound over the footage later on. I think today went well, the main challenge was getting the paper crane to move up-stream in the right direction, and without being knocked over by the current. After many takes, we were able to resolve this, and I think we got some really good footage.  

On-going location problems

At the beginning of the project, it was established that we would be filming at Kayleigh's home in Worksop. This was for two reasons; the first being that we were not allowed to film on University grounds, including accommodation. Secondly, we all felt it was really important aesthetically to film somewhere which felt 'lived-in', a real family home that you could tell had a lot of time and effort put into it to make it look homely.
We assumed this would be a solid plan from the beginning, and carried on writing our script, and finding our actors (which was also not without it's major difficulties). However, it turned out yesterday that it would not be convenient to film in Kayleigh's home after-all; a major problem, although she assured us that she would be able to find somewhere else for us to film, and she soon came back with the idea to film in her friends home in Barnsley. Hoping that this location will be suitable, we plan to visit and make a floor and lighting plan in the near-future, before the commencement of filming.

Update 1 
Today during the actor workshop, Kayleigh told us that the house she had arranged was only available to us on the weekend (either 11th or 12th) of April, for a few hours during the afternoon; this caused a problem, as we had planned to film during the week, fitting in with the schedules of our actors. Having spoken to both (the actors and the location) in turned out that neither were able to be flexible, and that we were going to have to find yet another location in which to film. During the session, Michalina spoke to another member of our group, who gave us permission to use her house in which to film. We discussed with her the days and times we wanted to film, and she assured us this would be acceptable. So we arranged to visit for the lighting/floor plan here instead.

Update 2
Today ( 3 days before our set film date) we had a message from Lucy, one of our actors, saying that her timetable had changed, and she was unavailable to shoot on the Monday. We also had no reply from Lauren, confirming that she would be there for the shoot. As a result, we are unable to use the latest location we have found; we planned to move the shoot to the weekend, if it would be suitable for our actors, but of course, the location turned out to be unavailable. We are now in the situation where we are struggling to fit the availability of actors around the availability of a location, which is proving to be incredibly difficult.

Update 3
At this point, there seems to be very little contact between Kayleigh and our actors, and we are still without a location to film in. We (Michalina and I) have advertised for new actresses, but without knowing who they are and when they are available, it is very difficult to find a location that is available to us when we think we'll need it. I have now taken over the job of finding a location, as I feel Kayleigh has lost interest in the project, and continues to suggest shooting in halls, which I have said, is out of the question.
I got some advice from a friend of mine in third year, who suggested that we find a B&B in which to film; I thought this was a good idea, although I was worried about the limitations we would have in regards to filming. I sent out the message below, to  5 or 6 different B&Bs around Sheffield;

Dear Sir/Madam 

I am a first year student at Sheffield Hallam University, studying Film & Media Production. I am currently seeking a location in which to film my final, end-of-year piece, which is to be a short drama. I would like to like to request the use of one of your rooms (paid at the usual rate) to use for the location of my project. 

The actual filming would be from the check-in time, through into the evening. From this time our hired actors will be making use of the room and we will be returning to film until check-out time the following morning. 

I would really appreciate if you'd be able to help with my piece, and of course we would provide credit to your business. I can also assure that I, a long with my crew, will be respectful to the space, and to your other guests. 

Many thanks, 

Katherine Muldowney. 

From many of the places I sent it to, I only got one reply, which was a rejection. It seems a lot of places would not appreciate for their guests to be surrounded by film crew, a long with any noise that could effect their stay. As it was getting very close to the date we wanted to film, I decided to book a B&B room anyway, at Kentwood Hall in Sheffield. I haven't received any permission yet, but we don't want to have our actors, with no location to film in. It's not the most ideal place either, as it's just one single room, but I like to think we'll be able to work around it.

Update 4
Having potentially found some actors, I have decided to carry on looking for a new location, as the space I had previously booked (now cancelled) was unable to help us, and I was finding it difficult to adjust the script to take place in just one room. I began looking at renting out a serviced apartment, but again worried about gaining permission to film there. I went on holiday website holidaylettings.com, and although I couldn't find anywhere affordable in Sheffield, there was an apartment in Lincoln that we could possibly afford to film in, it was rather far away, but we were getting desperate. I emailed the owner anyway, and she replied saying she would permit us to film there, but to book as soon as possible so there was enough time to take payment. I didn't want to book  just yet though, as we weren't 100% sure of our filming date, and I didn't want to lost my money. Once our actors confirm their availability, I will be able to confirm the booking.

Update 5
Having found our actors, confirming their availability for our dates (now Tuesday 21st April), I went to book the apartment. The owner quickly messaged me back, saying she was unable to take my booking, even though there was a vacancy still available for that night. Admittedly, I began to panic; we were filming in 3 days and we had no location yet again. As a last resort, I searched airb&b.com, a website where people rent out part or all of their homes. I was able to find an apartment in Sheffield for an affordable price, much better than travelling to a further location. I emailed the owner, asking for her permission to film in her apartment for the day (at the normal nightly rate of £56). She happily agreed to let us film, and accepted my booking. The apartment looked perfect, It was exactly the type of place we wanted; a small apartment that looked homely and lived in, and realistic for the characters to live in. It was an awful lot of effort with a lot of problems, but i'm pleased I persevered and managed to find somewhere.

Final Script

Due to our actress portraying Alice's mother dropping out last minute, I suggested that we change the mother character into an older sister, the reason for this being that we had two young actresses, instead of one older and one younger, and also because we were getting incredibly close to our booked shoot-date, and there was no time to find a new actress to play the mother. I made changes to the names, as well as the type of language used in the script. Luckily, the actress portraying Alice, who is 20, can get a way with a much younger playing age, and the age-gap between the two looks believable. 

Shot List

Floor Plans

Script Draft 2

 This second draft of the script I feel is greatly improved. As mentioned before, the argument needed to sound more as though it was involving a mother-daughter relationship, and I didn't want either of the characters to give the impression that they were the 'villain'. Although it is a heated conflict, I want the viewer to still be able to have some sympathy, and to see the loving relationship that exists between the two characters, despite their problems.