The first day of shooting was definitely a success overall, but also definitely had its ups and downs. Owing to our lack of preparation in regards to shot scheduling, we got off to a very slow start. We ended up having to write up the majority of the schedule actually on the day which was far from ideal. After we set up the lights we realised we would need to rethink some of our camera positioning which also took some time. On top of that, we were just generally slow to start, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. It seemed like the group had a kind of reluctance to actually start shooting, or maybe it was a lack of leadership from the myself and Hannah (first AD). Personally, I had started to get anxious because we didn’t start shooting until well after our planned start time, and I was worried that if we continued at that rate we would run out of time before we had shot everything we wanted to shoot. This anxiety lasted for the first few shots, and then gradually died down as we started being more efficient. After the first hour, my feelings of anxiety had completely dissipated and it had turned into quite a relaxing, enjoyable experience.

The group came together very well in the end. The actors were great, everyone performed their roles well, and I felt like I was getting along very well in my role as director. The majority of the experience was very positive, and we shot everything we had planned to shoot on the first day.

Seeing as this was my first experience of being the director, I learned a lot from this first day, particularly in relation to communicating with the group. There was an occasional bumping of heads between some of us, usually to do with disagreements about the shooting order, continuity issues and lighting. When I found myself involved in these little disagreements, I realised it would be easy to get too emotionally involved in the argument which would be detrimental to the task at hand. I found that it was much better to set emotions aside, and be as understanding and reasonable as I possibly could, and reach a resolution quickly. It was a small apartment with a fair few people in it, and I knew there was no room for resentment in there.

As Robin had warned, lighting was a constant battle. The group handled it very well though, and no one was shy about giving their suggestions on how we should light a shot. Jenny was particularly helpful in this. Audio was handled very well by Alaine, the only issue was the occasional tram that would go by and ruin the take.

The first shoot day was a big learning experience, and its success prepared us well for the following day.