Reflection on many days/weeks of shooting:

We decided to set most of our film at night now the shooting needed to be done after the sun had gone down but within a good enough schedule to allow everybody involved to get home at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately we did not have much in the way of production planning such as a schedule but we had storyboards and shot lists so that allowed us to work quickly and efficiently. On every shoot we managed to come up with loads of ideas either in order to improve on a sequence or add something new entirely and because of how quickly we managed to get through the storyboards we were also able to get the other ideas filmed as well.

The biggest issue during filming has been missing actors as this put us back for quite a few of the night shoots meaning that we just used as much of the night as we could to get other footage that we needed and then saved a night to dedicate to getting the sequence with all of the actors when they could actually get to a shoot. The worst case of this was when we prepared to shoot for around 5pm but personal issues with the main actress meant she ended up being hours late for the shoot meaning that we had to shoot into the night and finish just in the for the last train back to Doncaster (for the actress) These set-backs have caused the filming to be slowed down a lot more than we had anticipated and pushed the entire production schedule backwards, luckily this problem has not been so severe that it has had noticeable adverse effects on our film.

Lots of day footage had to be shot as well and as we got closer to Christmas the time of day we could shoot in literally got shorter until only a few hours a day had suitable daylight. Even with this against us we managed to find two or three good days to shoot and got some really good footage in perfect sunlight for filming, which was quite rare for the winter. I was sent out on my own after all of this shooting by the editor to get some extra coverage and cutaways where I met up with the actress on my own and just got a few little bits that would make the film cut together more smoothly, I think this would not have been needed with a bit better planning as it was so cold when we filmed that we all kind of wanted to rush through every single aspect of the film. We had a "that will do" sort of attitude for a few bits and as it turned out... it would not do.

My favorite shoot was the one in which we shot the car almost hitting the protagonist as I found it really fun trying to get lots of angles of the action so that we could cut it together believably and the choreographing of getting the actress to run out and have the car moving and stopping was really fun to get right. (If a little frustrating at times)

Overall on every shoot I mostly worked with Hannah (Mason) as she was the director and we could just work from storyboards and discuss any ideas or changes we had on the set/location every time we filmed. This added something to most parts of the film as we could easily make changes or improvements while on the move and if I made any suggestions it was not met with hostility therefore it was a good environment to work in. I also got a lot of freedom with some parts of the film where the director would say to just go off and get as many shots as I can/want to get and see if I can find anything interesting, I would say this paid off most in the park scene as we got some really interesting shots there even if we did not use them all.

Another challenge for us when filming was continuity since we had to film on eight different days in total the costume had to look the same every day meaning that we had to keep recorded footage with us to look at for reference and remember details like where the colours were positioned on the protagonists scarf. We also had to make sure that the weather and surroundings made sense so that every shoot could look as if it was on the same night/day otherwise the audience would not be able to connect as it would not feel like a believable story world.

Overall I did enjoy my role as cinematographer and found that you got the chance to do really hands on work with the scope to also be as creative as you want even while on location as every storyboard and piece of script was subject to change. This open style of film making improved the film as a whole because if we spotted an improvement it could be made there and then.