End of Week 4 of Filming

So we have been working on this movie for a month now! It seems much longer! But as we are fitting in filming wherever we can, around school and people's busy schedules, it is going to take quite a while longer. We have shot 14 scenes (only 62 to go fact fans!)

I am out of bulbs! The bulbs that cost £10 each! Got to order about 8 more for safety, we need our lights! I think the budget for this film, before advertising etc is going to be just under £1500. Not that much in movie terms (peanuts is an understatement, this budget would buy Tom Cruise's lunch on one day of any of his recent films.) But that is a lot of money in the desperately trying to stay married terms!

I brought in another talented actor friend for a cameo this week. The wonderful Jools Georges who I have acted with many times over the years. She is a brilliant comedic actress, and great to have around. She played a form teacher. She also brought her beautiful daughter Annabel with her, and the girls loved her, and helped out by holding her.

Scene went well, but we had to cut occasionally when Annabel was missing her mummy, or just wondering what on earth was going on! This scene is the 2nd half of the first scene we shot in the school, we now see Greg entering the classroom and seeing Lauren once again after being accosted by Becky.

Jools was great, as was Jack and the rest of the cast. We had a good amount of extras and that makes all the difference, adds to a convincing "school feel."

The next day we shot another common room scene, and I also shot a quick fill in scene of Abi (playing Lauren) walking down a corridor looking for the right classroom, which will be cut in earlier before the scene where she meets Greg for the first time.

We were a bit against the clock as Ellie who plays Caroline (excellent must give her more to do) had to be at work by 4, so we shot all of her stuff and then found convincing ways of shooting reactions and stuff to what she had said previously.

Then shot Richy, Simon and John, all of their bits around the girls sequences. Took a few takes but we got there and it does all cut together nicely. Current running time of Much Ado About Lauren is 23mins. Of course when we finish filming everything, we could be well over the two hour mark, so will probaly have to make little snips all the way through the film to meet our hopeful running time of around one hour forty five minutes.

Shot a quick insert flashback with Simon at his place, when he is dispairng at the computer keyboard. We have shot this once before, in a hurry I might add, and when I looked at the footage I discovered you could see me clearly reflected in a poster on the boys wall! Looking forward to cutting in a flashback scene into context, these are what will make our movie different and hopefully very funny.

Much Ado About Lauren end of week 3 of shooting

So there it is , our title. Much Ado About Lauren. Thrown a lot of titles around but this seems the most appropriate in line with the quirky comedy feel of the film and that our leading man's nickname is Shakespeare and he writes a play about Lauren! Get the word out, we have a title!

So another eventful week, had a great time filming with Simon and Tom some dialogue scenes in their house. We tried to vary locations so we have the brothers chatting in close up on the floor, and then we have them exchanging dialogue in the shower! Very funny, in fact I ruined a couple of takes laughing so much! Can I just go on record in saying the boys were not naked during the filming of this scene (and neither was I!) Very funny seeing the boys chatting while lathering each other up!

Then proceeded to film them chatting while straightening hair and then having a cozy chat together in bed. Can I just say this reads a lot worse than it actually is! Tom had a teddy bear with him and all is very tasteful!

Filmed a "common room" scene in 2 halves. It was great to welcome Sophia back into the film, we shot a scene with her and Simon (he reads her the poem his brother has written her) and then she storms out screaming revenge.

We then filmed the second half of the scene with Ian and Jack playing two of our "bad guys". All went well and we had some fun. All cuts together well. We had another lamp blow, but I discovered that it was a fuse and not a bulb. Subsequintly the lighting in a couple of shots was not all I wanted but, hey, we are doing the best we can with what we have and the times these young people are available.

Able to track down these types of fuses and so the lamps are ready for another week!

Also pleased to meet up with my good friend and fellow blogger, Stevie Warner, who played me some new songs he has written for the film, which are excellent. He also gave me a cd of some other songs he has written over the years and I LOVED a song caled, "Blue" which I will be putting in the movie somewhere (I just hope Abi who plays Lauren has blue eyes!! Although I won't be re-casting her if she doesn't!! Abi lights up the screen and I'm so glad she's a part of this.)

End of 2nd week of filming

Had a good filming week. We have an 11 minute movie! Two scenes shot this week, including a drama lesson which introduced Paul Wade as our drama teacher. Went well, good extras helping us, and it all edited together well.

One of our bulbs blew so that was annoying working with only one light. I have ordered some very expensive (£45 for 4!) replacement bulbs off the net, but also went to B and Q to buy some one quarter strength bulbs to tide us over the next week.

Simon, our leading man has not been at all well this week, throat infection, but we were still able to shoot another scene which brings his crazy brother Lenny (played by Simon's actual crazy brother Tom!) back into the movie after his very funny entrance earlier on. Took a while to light, but the scene worked well and this also edits well together.

Looking forward to week 3. Loads to do, and a fair bit of catching up to do, but I think we might be onto something pretty funny here, if we keep working at it.

Latest title idea- "Loving Greg". Greg being our leading man, and he wants the girl to love him and he is also trying to be loving to someone else. Got to come up with a final title soon! If you are reading this feel free to leave a comment as to if you like this title or what you think might be a better title!