A Christmas Carol
Tuesday 24th September -
Today we are making the final edits to our media CV's and preparing any required work needed to apply for the crew roles for our TV movie project 'A Christmas Carol'. We are all going to have an interview with Kelly to apply for the role we want on set.
I am going to be applying for 3 roles -
- Production Manager
- 1st Assistant Director
- Marketing Manager
The responsibility of the marketing manager is to create marketing initiatives for the production to create an interest and audience for the final product. They will make campaigns to attract the audience and sell the product.
Thursday 26th September -
Today we got told our job roles for the production, we all got jobs that were based on our interests on and off set, our experience on past projects and our interviews.
Based on all this I got given the following three roles -
Thursday 26th September -
Today we got told our job roles for the production, we all got jobs that were based on our interests on and off set, our experience on past projects and our interviews.
Based on all this I got given the following three roles -
- Production Co-ordinator
- 1st Assistant Director
- Marketing Manager
I am very happy to have received these roles as is it want I want to do within the production and very close to what I actually do in a real job role. This is good as I will be getting great experience co-ordinating the cast and crew.
Research on Job roles -
Research on Job roles -
Matthew Hooton
Research for Production Co-ordinator
I have been given the role of production coordinator on our project of A Christmas Carol, this is exciting as this is our biggest project yet and I will have to control a cast and crew of over 50 people.
My key roles and responsibilities when taking on this role will be supervising the production and keeping it in line with the budget and schedule. I will be responsible for organising the logistics of the production such as hiring crew members, getting kit organised and making the production schedule.
I have done this on previous projects before but never to the scale that is going to be required for this production. I will have to research more about the production co-ordinator role to make sure that I know what it is going to entail and what skills I am going to have to use to make sure the production runs smoothly.
Research of period dramas –
To make sure that our TV movie looks right and Asif it was in the Victorian era we first need to research what life was like in the Victorian era. We must also make sure that the theme runs throughout the film and there aren’t points in it where it feels like the time period may have changed.
For example, we will need to think about what they wore, how they spoke, locations and how they looked. And many other aspects that will really set the theme in place.
We can also take a look at other period dramas that have been made and see how they make sure you can tell what time period the film is set in. For example, downton Abby
Monday 30th September -
Today was our first look at the script we were using for the production, as a production group we read through it and made notes of things that we were going to change, add or remove. We made notes of ideas that we had while reading through like locations for scenes and costumes for characters. We then decided what scenes we were going to keep and what to remove, after a final few tweaks we had our shooting script ready for filming.
This was exciting for us as this was going to be our biggest project yet, we had never done such a large on-location period drama shoot before.
Tuesday 1st October -
Now that we had our script ready it was now time to cast for the film. We made a list of characters that we needed actors to play and we started to plan auditions.
This project was going to utilize all our different departments in college, this was made up of us (film and tv), makeup for production arts and acting for stage and screen. This meant that we had to all work together all the time to make the project as professional as we could.
We made a Facebook group with everyone from each department in it so that we all could communicate easily and share important details and updates such as on-set photos and call sheets for the cast and crew.
We set a date for the auditions and told the actors so they could prepare for their audition.
Monday 7th October -
Today we held the auditions for a Christmas carol, we set up our green room for the actors to come in one by one and audition for their chosen part.
We had a designated casting team who were in charge of the auditions and casting the roles of the characters for the film, this was made up of me, laura, Anya, ollie, tom and two first years.
Below are the actor's auditions:
We then typed up the final cast list and posted it on the Facebook group for the actors to see what role they had been given.
One of the biggest difficulties we had when casting was casting the main role of scrooge, as we were limited for numbers of male actors we had to seriously think about the casting of this character. Scrooge had always been a character played by a male as the character is an old man who is set in his ways of hating Christmas. As we couldn't find a suitable male actor to play the role we started to look at the female actors as a possibility of playing the role, this was a big move to make as Scrooge had never been played by a female actor before. But we thought this was a good thing as it would make our adaptation of the film very different and unique and not just another remake of a classic film.
We relooked at the female actors again and their audition tapes, and decided on an actor to play the part. This was going to be Kate Whittaker.
Monday 14th October -
It was now time to make a start on the intense amount of production planning that we had to do, from finding locations, scheduling shoots, to planning shots and set design. This was our biggest project yet and it included a lot of cast a crew. This meant that everything had to be thoroughly planned out as we didn't have time to mess anything up and behind our proposed transmission date. As the production coordinator, I oversaw each department's planning and where they were up to. I made sure that everyone had something to do and made each department a to-do list with deadlines on it so that we could get everything planned ready for shooting the first scenes.
Here is a screenshot of the to-do lists that I made for each department to keep them on track with their tasks and deadlines.
This was exciting for us as this was going to be our biggest project yet, we had never done such a large on-location period drama shoot before.
Tuesday 1st October -
Now that we had our script ready it was now time to cast for the film. We made a list of characters that we needed actors to play and we started to plan auditions.
This project was going to utilize all our different departments in college, this was made up of us (film and tv), makeup for production arts and acting for stage and screen. This meant that we had to all work together all the time to make the project as professional as we could.
We made a Facebook group with everyone from each department in it so that we all could communicate easily and share important details and updates such as on-set photos and call sheets for the cast and crew.
We set a date for the auditions and told the actors so they could prepare for their audition.
Monday 7th October -
Today we held the auditions for a Christmas carol, we set up our green room for the actors to come in one by one and audition for their chosen part.
We had a designated casting team who were in charge of the auditions and casting the roles of the characters for the film, this was made up of me, laura, Anya, ollie, tom and two first years.
Below are the actor's auditions:
Thursday 10th October -
Today myself and the casting team sat down and decided on a cast for the film, we watched the actors auditions again and recalled the ones that we liked. We brought them back to the green room and asked them to go through another scene of their choice so that we could see them preform more.
We then decided as a team who should get what role and play each character, this was really hard as multiple people went for the same role and obviously we could only give the role to one person. We eventually came to a joint decision on all roles and had a finished cast list for the film.
One of the biggest difficulties we had when casting was casting the main role of scrooge, as we were limited for numbers of male actors we had to seriously think about the casting of this character. Scrooge had always been a character played by a male as the character is an old man who is set in his ways of hating Christmas. As we couldn't find a suitable male actor to play the role we started to look at the female actors as a possibility of playing the role, this was a big move to make as Scrooge had never been played by a female actor before. But we thought this was a good thing as it would make our adaptation of the film very different and unique and not just another remake of a classic film.
We relooked at the female actors again and their audition tapes, and decided on an actor to play the part. This was going to be Kate Whittaker.
Monday 14th October -
It was now time to make a start on the intense amount of production planning that we had to do, from finding locations, scheduling shoots, to planning shots and set design. This was our biggest project yet and it included a lot of cast a crew. This meant that everything had to be thoroughly planned out as we didn't have time to mess anything up and behind our proposed transmission date. As the production coordinator, I oversaw each department's planning and where they were up to. I made sure that everyone had something to do and made each department a to-do list with deadlines on it so that we could get everything planned ready for shooting the first scenes.
Today the marketing team which was made up of me and Eden made social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram to bring some attention to the film and try and get an audience to come to watch it at the premiere. This also kept followers of the accounts up to date with the production and what we were doing on and off set.
Paperwork and production planning continued from here...
One big thing I had to do as the production co-ordinator was scheduling the shooting days for cast and crew. This was going to be quite difficult as this was our biggest cast and crew ever and everyone needed to be in different places at different times to film different scenes.
We gave ourselves a time scale of 3 weeks of shooting in order to be ready and have enough time to edit the film in time for our transmission date. It was now my job with the help of the production manager (ollie) and of course kelly to schedule all the scenes.
After a few days of moving things around, I had finally made a first draft of the shooting schedule.
Thursday 24th October -
Today was our last full day of production planning for the film before we start to shoot.
I made sure that we had all the paperwork ready for shooting such as call sheets for the first day and risk assessments.
Monday 4th November -
Today was our first official day of filming, our first day was at Preston Park in Stockton-on-tees, we choose this location as it is a museum and they have a life-sized full victorian street filled with shops and victorian things which is just what we needed to make the film look as if it is set in that time.
I had scheduled to start shooting the first scene at about half 9 in the morning but due to crew not turning up as quick as we thought they would and equipment not being readily available we did not start filming until about 11:30am, this was something that we knew we had to fix and not let happen again as we only had limited time at this location and a lot of the scenes were planned to be filmed here.
Once we got started, things went well and we shot most of the scenes that we had planned to shoot and pushed back the ones we didn't to the next time that we were going to be shooting at the park.
For me, this was a big day as I was in control of a very large cast and crew at a scale of which I had never really been before, I believe that I did a good job and made sure that everyone knew what they were doing and that making sure that we were being efficient with our time.
Overall the day went well and it was a good start to this major project.
Tuesday 5th November -
Today was the second day of filming, we only had one scene planned but it was going to be a tricky one to do as we had to get the ghost to disappear in the mirror. We tried a couple of different ways but finally choose a way to do it which involved a bit of editing in post-production, the day went well and the actor's makeup looked great!
Wednesday 6th November -
This day we shot the graveyard scene, this was an important scene as it was on location at an actual graveyard, this meant that all cast and crew needed to be very professional and respectful, our location manager laura got us permission to film here and it turned out being a really good location and looking great on camera.
Unfortunately, the shoot didn't go as smoothly as we wanted it to due to the weather, it started to rain very heavily but we needed to shoot the scene as we had booked to use this location and didn't have time to come back to do it again.
We decided to keep going and power through the rain even though we got very wet, we thought that the rain added to the ominous feel of the scene. We had to use our jackets and jumpers to keep the cameras and actors' makeup dry.
Overall the scene did go okay and we got it shot despite the weather conditions.
Here are some on-set photos from our time shooting the graveyard scene..
Thursday 7th November -
Today we headed back to Preston park, but this time we were filming in the wood area.
We shot two scenes for the Ghost of Christmas Past. One was where we get to see Scrooge as a child, the other was Present Scrooge watching her separation with her fiancé.
These scenes went well, but when we went to film the next scene, we found that we did not have one of the costumes for the scene.
Ollie and Conrad drove to yarm to find something we could use so that we didn't have to stop filming, and they came back with a replacement ASAP. Despite our problem solving, when they got back to the park it started pouring down with rain.
Since we were on our last scene, we decided to postpone filming as we had no shelter since the cafe had closed and it would be far too muddy to go back down to the river to film and it would also be too dark to film as it would mess the continuity up as we had filmed part of the scene earlier in the day.
Monday 11th November -
Today was our second time at Preston park museum, today was a big day as we had planned to film 5 scenes at the park,
the day went well but we did have a few little problems such as locations changing which required us to rethink the set design as we now had to deal with things such as legal signage and wires for electric devices.
Today we also experimented with special effects on set by using iron wool and spinning it to make sparks fly off, we were going to use this as a transition for the ghost of Christmas present,
Paperwork and production planning continued from here...
One big thing I had to do as the production co-ordinator was scheduling the shooting days for cast and crew. This was going to be quite difficult as this was our biggest cast and crew ever and everyone needed to be in different places at different times to film different scenes.
We gave ourselves a time scale of 3 weeks of shooting in order to be ready and have enough time to edit the film in time for our transmission date. It was now my job with the help of the production manager (ollie) and of course kelly to schedule all the scenes.
After a few days of moving things around, I had finally made a first draft of the shooting schedule.
I posted this in the production Facebook group for all cast and crew to see.
Today was our last full day of production planning for the film before we start to shoot.
I made sure that we had all the paperwork ready for shooting such as call sheets for the first day and risk assessments.
Monday 4th November -
Today was our first official day of filming, our first day was at Preston Park in Stockton-on-tees, we choose this location as it is a museum and they have a life-sized full victorian street filled with shops and victorian things which is just what we needed to make the film look as if it is set in that time.
I had scheduled to start shooting the first scene at about half 9 in the morning but due to crew not turning up as quick as we thought they would and equipment not being readily available we did not start filming until about 11:30am, this was something that we knew we had to fix and not let happen again as we only had limited time at this location and a lot of the scenes were planned to be filmed here.
Once we got started, things went well and we shot most of the scenes that we had planned to shoot and pushed back the ones we didn't to the next time that we were going to be shooting at the park.
Overall the day went well and it was a good start to this major project.
Tuesday 5th November -
Wednesday 6th November -
This day we shot the graveyard scene, this was an important scene as it was on location at an actual graveyard, this meant that all cast and crew needed to be very professional and respectful, our location manager laura got us permission to film here and it turned out being a really good location and looking great on camera.
Unfortunately, the shoot didn't go as smoothly as we wanted it to due to the weather, it started to rain very heavily but we needed to shoot the scene as we had booked to use this location and didn't have time to come back to do it again.
We decided to keep going and power through the rain even though we got very wet, we thought that the rain added to the ominous feel of the scene. We had to use our jackets and jumpers to keep the cameras and actors' makeup dry.
Here are some on-set photos from our time shooting the graveyard scene..
Today we headed back to Preston park, but this time we were filming in the wood area.
We shot two scenes for the Ghost of Christmas Past. One was where we get to see Scrooge as a child, the other was Present Scrooge watching her separation with her fiancé.
These scenes went well, but when we went to film the next scene, we found that we did not have one of the costumes for the scene.
Ollie and Conrad drove to yarm to find something we could use so that we didn't have to stop filming, and they came back with a replacement ASAP. Despite our problem solving, when they got back to the park it started pouring down with rain.
Since we were on our last scene, we decided to postpone filming as we had no shelter since the cafe had closed and it would be far too muddy to go back down to the river to film and it would also be too dark to film as it would mess the continuity up as we had filmed part of the scene earlier in the day.
Monday 11th November -
Today was our second time at Preston park museum, today was a big day as we had planned to film 5 scenes at the park,
the day went well but we did have a few little problems such as locations changing which required us to rethink the set design as we now had to deal with things such as legal signage and wires for electric devices.
Today we also experimented with special effects on set by using iron wool and spinning it to make sparks fly off, we were going to use this as a transition for the ghost of Christmas present,
Tuesday 12th November -
As a very last minute decision, we decided not to shoot on this day due to complications with the locations and actors, instead, we used this time to work on the production paperwork doing things such as making a draft of the film poster and planning the rest of the week's shoots.
Wednesday 13th November -
Today we returned to Preston Park to film some more scenes, this time we used the bandstand as our location as it looked great on camera.
As this was a public area we had the trouble of people walking past and the noise of surrounding areas such as people walking dogs and cars. We worked through this and shot the scenes that we needed,
This day was different to others when shooting as we needed scrooge to look old in some scenes and then young and in her 'prime of life' in other scenes, this meant that we had to cross film scenes, we filmed all the parts where she needed her aging makeup on first and then we got the makeup department to quickly take it off so that she looked young for the other half of the scenes.
Thursday 14th November -
On this day we went to film various scenes at tom guests house, he is a teacher of the actors at college, we decided to use his house as it was built in the victorian era and still has a very Victorian look.
Me and Eden drove there and brought the equipment, when we arrived we went in and started to set up the kit and dressing the sets, when filming the shoot went well, a few actors forgot a couple of their lines so more than one take was required.
Monday 18th November -
Today was our final day at Preston Park, this meant that we had too work hard and make sure that we got every scene shot that we needed too as we were not able to come back after this day. All the cast and crew were here early ready to shoot. This day we had quite a big scene to shoot, this was the ballroom scene where Fezziwig is having a party for all his staff, this scene involved a lot of cast so we had to be quick and efficient to get it done in time, we used special pieces of equipment such as the crane and Steadicam to make the shots look as smooth and as nice as possible.
Thursday 21st November -
This was our day to reshoot the graveyard scene. We had to swap camera operators for this shoot as Thomas couldn't make it, so Eden took over. Although it took a while to film, it went fairly smoothly apart from the fact that big LED lights came on towards the end of the shoot which we had to cover up with our coats so that the continuity wasn't ruined.
Monday 2nd December -
Today the team filmed at Eaglescliffe village hall, I wasn't there for this shoot due to having something else booked, so I left the team in charge of the shoot. They reported back to me and told me that everything had gone okay but they were in a little bit of a rush due to getting to the location later than scheduled.
Once we had completed this shoot day, we were now on our way to nearly completing the production stage of our Christmas carol production!
Post-Production -
Now that we had shot all of our scenes, it was now time to do all the post-production, this included editing all the scenes together, creating marketing and getting ready for the premier.
Editing was going to be tricky as we had so much footage and different scenes to put together. We came up with the idea of giving each person in our class one or two scenes to edit together so that way one person wasn't stuck with the humongous task of editing all the footage together by themselves.
This worked out well as the edit got completed a lot faster than it would of it someone did it by themselves.
As the production coordinator, I took charge of keeping a track of who was editing what scene so that scenes didn't get editing twice and that we didn't miss out any scenes.
Next up was the premiere, our time to showcase our finished project to an audience.
We decided to showcase the film at ARC cinema so that an audience, cast, and crew could all come to one place to watch the very first showing of our version of a Christmas carol.
The premiere went well and the audience enjoyed the film, this was great as we had all worked so hard to make it look good and be finished in time for a premiere.
Overall I believe this whole project went very well, this was our biggest project to-date and It took months of planning + filming to create and we were all pleased with the finished product, one of the most important things that we took away from this project is how much we all learned. Learning about our job roles and what they entail, working as a huge production team, working with lots of actors and keeping to schedule when shooting so many scenes in many different locations. We also learnt a lot about shooting period dramas and how much research it actually takes to get it right and make it accurate for your chosen time period.
UFILMS: A CHRISTMAS CAROL:
