Our third shoot for Human Resources was on Monday. It went really well! We were efficient and professional and finished ahead of schedule. We still had a relaxed and fun environment and everyone seemed to genuinely enjoy themselves.
We started off the day in the building 14/media precinct area. The scenes we were filming there were short and didn’t require much rehearsal. Filming was a bit tricky at times because there were people furnishing the area and setting up for some event at the same time. It was frustrating because it wasn’t just talking or “normal” background noise, but noise like the sound of heavy-duty plastic being unwrapped or the floor being scraped. Eve and I spoke to the people a few times to ask them to be a bit quieter when we were shooting a take (asked nicely). I’ve got to hand it to Eve for being more confident in asking perfect strangers to be quiet, honestly, I was quite nervous to even though that was more of my job.
We then later moved into building seven to shoot the hallway scenes. If I thought sound was an issue in building 14 I was in for a cruel shock in building seven. People were constantly moving around, leaving rooms, talking further down the hallway, coming down the stairs (how dare they!) This held us up a lot and quite a few takes were ruined by doors slamming in the background. The frustrating thing is that the hallway had apparently been very empty the other times our crew had been there. I’d only been there once but even then, we saw one or two people, not lots of people every few minutes. Also, people need to learn to let a door close gently. Anyway, even though it was very frustrating at times, we did get it all done.
The actors changed (i.e. some left and some arrived) at lunchtime. One thing I was really happy with for this shoot was all the food that we provided and breaks we offered. Inevitably everyone was tired, sore and a bit over it by the end of the day but we weren’t too overworked- and we had lots of yummy food.
A really fun moment was when we replaced the coffee from the first scene in episode two (the coffee that Liz drops and Duncan kicks down the hall) with a tomato. I bought four tomatoes for our lunch because my portion understanding was way, way off, and we didn’t want any drink to spill because it would be such a hassle to clean up. So, low and behold in our giggly state we devised a plan to replace the coffee with one of the three spare tomatoes. It was hilarious to film. The idea of an office worker turning up with a single tomato and then her boss kicking it down the hallway was very funny to us. It may seem bizarre in the episode but I think the bizarreness will really help make it a more engaging and funny episode.
Everyone worked really well in their roles, getting into it and helping each other out. I was especially impressed by Matilda who had originally been so apathetic about the idea of directing, but really came forward with a lot of direction and focus. I think it shows how it’s important not to reject the idea of doing something just because you don’t think you’d be good at it. Anyway, we only have one more shoot to go now. Looking forward to wrapping it all up, but overall I am really proud of how we worked on Monday.