The journey to Lake Sanatorium began early in the morning. The weather was on our side and we arrived at our destination on time. Our only hiccup was that one of our group members could not make it. This left three people to film, which made me grateful to be in a group of four.

We knew that we needed more atmos like the birds chirping, wind noises and footsteps. Since it was early in the morning and the birds were still singing away, we recorded atmos first. It was then that we encountered our first major problem and that was the battery on the zoom mic. While initially we intended to record sound for most if not all scenes, the battery life limited us to record the poem and the birds chirping. I berated myself that night for not even trying to record audio on my iphone, even though I know the sound quality would be nowhere near as good as a mic, we could have meddled with it in audition.

We began filming from the beginning of our trek to the lake, to make it seem like the protagonist’s aim was to find the lake. To stabilise our shots, we used my very cheap tripod and had two people holding the camera. This was the best tip that we got from paul, as it saved us a lot of work in post and also a lot of money in the future. Who needs a stabiliser when a fifty dollar tripod does the same. Similar to our storyboard, we struggled with finding actions for her to do. We just told her to look distressed and lost, hoping that in post the storyline would make sense. Our favourite shots were definitely not planned and hence why we loved them so much. We did not expect to find a dead moth in the lake, nor did we plan for her to rip the poem.