We did it – 10 actors, 20 crew, 3 locations, 3 days filming

Monday 20th February, 8.45pm and we’ve wrapped on my 4th short film project to date – That Day.

First up, I’d like to express my deepest gratitude to cast and crew for the huge amount of effort and professionalism displayed on set during the three day shoot. I’m very lucky to be working with a team of such high calibre. A team that believe in what I’m trying to achieve and trust my vision and drive.

We were also very lucky with our three locations. Day 1 and we were filming out doors at Chevin Forest Park in Otley. Fortunately, I’d managed to convince a local farmer to let us use their land to park our facilities vehicle and to set up base. Day 2 and we’re indoors at an old mill in Birstall, West Yorkshire for our attic scene. The owners of the property were incredibly supportive and thoroughly enjoyed the whole film experience. Day 3 and we’re filming in the evening at a cool office location in Keighley. This just happened to be the place where our Production Manager (Bethan Davies) works during the week, it’s not what you know!

Despite the rain and horrible weather conditions during the start of day 1, things turned for the better later in the day and we never looked back. Cast and crew coped really well with the very cold temperatures, it was very cold!

Considering the lack of time available during pre-production, we all did incredibly well to prepare for filming. Another great experience and plenty more lessons learned on this project, including:

• Always think about catering earlier in pre-production! It can be 25% of your budget!

• More time needs to be spent on storyboarding and shot lists (preferably some pre-visualization in future)

• From this day forth there will be more meetings with Heads of Department before filming to discuss logistics etc.

• I got lucky on this film, but in future I will never cast an actor without seeing an audition of some sort.

• I can’t do everything myself, I need more help in pre-production, maybe a co-producer?

• Scheduling a day for rehearsals with cast

• And more importantly – NO MORE LOW BUDGET SHORT FILMS!

So, what’s next for That Day?

The next phase will be logging and labeling all of the clips from the rushes. Each video clip will be labeled with scene number, take number and camera set up. For me, this is an incredibly important process, it’s a healthy housekeeping process to go through and will make ones life easier in the edit. Then, I’ll start to put together the first edit of the film.

Keep your eye on the blog for regular updates. There’s also the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/thatdayfilm and my Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/dannylaceyfilm

We also had hours of behind the scenes video shot over the three days and I will be sharing that with you on this website in the very near future.

Thanks for stopping by and scroll down for a handful of behind the scenes pictures taken by Julian Holtom.

Danny