The last three days have been rather intense in the serial-sphere. The start of the week was uneventful for myself as I was stuck at home, sick. In class, they continued pre-production for our re-shoot, including writing an almighty to-do list that has already proven to be very useful in keeping grounded and focused (I love lists). I came into class on Friday feeling very upbeat (recovered from tonsillitis and the weather was genuinely divine) and positive about the imminent shoot and general production of Human Resources.
Friday was a productive day for me as I learnt about writing a call sheet and everything that I had to do to prepare it, along with my other AD duties. It took me a while to get my head around the process, of working out which scenes we had to shoot when based on actor availability and then the order we would shoot them based on location. We were still receiving actor’s availability throughout this process and so our plans continued to change and develop accordingly. By the end of the class we had three days of shooting (two of them half days), each with different assortments of actors, planned for the next week. We were having some difficulties with location as the most favourable locations weren’t free for when we needed them, and the others felt that the locations we could book wouldn’t do the trick. Regardless, I felt confident in my duties as AD and knew what I had to do in preparation for the shoot on Monday.
However, I left feeling somewhat uneasy. We had gotten a lot done but we were still relying on something imperative to our success- a confirmation from Birrin that he would be available for the shoot(s). I had the feeling this was going to be an issue for us, which got me thinking. If we did not have our ideal actor, nor our ideal location, and not everyone was available for the shoot also… would our re-shoot even be worth it? Would it produce something of better quality than our first attempt?
On Saturday evening, my prayers were answered, but it wasn’t God who got back to me, it was T H E D E V I L. That’s a bit dramatic, but Birrin said that he wasn’t available for much time on Monday. I asked him if he could come before or after his commitments, but didn’t get a very encouraging response back. He still thought we were getting Christian to play Duncan (we’d talked with him about the re-cast a few weeks ago), and he wasn’t available on Tuesday either. I talked with Kelly and Bridie (Director and Producer) and we decided to try and plan something else. I was disappointed and frustrated that Birrin wasn’t available when we made the decision with the writers to cast him as Duncan, especially considering they were the ones who were so critical of Christian’s performance. However, it must be said that we were also at fault in this situation. It was very silly of us (and I should have been more involved/thought about this earlier as AD) to go ahead and plan a shoot when we weren’t certain of one of the main actor’s availability. We had asked him for it but we shouldn’t have gone so far in the planning before we knew for sure.
Once that decision had been made we had the task of working out a plan B. We soon messaged Cam, another writer, to see if he’d be interested. We didn’t/don’t want to get Christian back in the role because only on Friday did we tell him he’d be playing Christian, and it would be unprofessional and plain rude to jostle him around. Bridie messaged Cam and we waited for a response. By early afternoon Sunday, we hadn’t heard back. We had no actor for a main character for a shoot the next day. We made the painful but ultimately necessary decision to cancel Monday’s shoot. Cam wrote back Monday morning and told us he wasn’t interested.
We now have today (Tuesday) set out for crisis management and to work out where we go from here. It’s such a pity that after such a well organised and disaster free first shoot, we’ve had to cancel two days of our second shoot this week. It is in part our own fault but it is also disappointing to be working with writers who seem un-engaged and unreliable. I don’t know what we will do next but we will need to decide soon, as we have less than four weeks until our final assessment is due. We will see.