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We had our first meeting for 'The Neighbour' today. To start with, we readthrough the script, talked about it, asked and answered questions.

After that, we split into groups and talked about my individual roles. Acting wise, there wasn't a lot to talk about as we are doing rehearsals next meeting.

For editing, me and Ted talked about how the process will work. We agreed we'd both make copies of the footage at the end of each day, then do the edit at Ted's as he has the better computer.

We're planning to start immediately the day after filming, and get it done as early as possible, so if there is any issues we have plenty of time to fix them.

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Ocean Down, Harvey Smith (me), Libby Robinson and Lucy Swindlehurst, rehearsing for 'The Neighbour'.

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Today the performers all met up with the Director for some rehearsal time.

I rehearsed all my scenes for the film, which was helpful because we got a good idea of positioning, and where we need to be at certain times.

I also know that my performance matches Wrens' vision, and Wren gave me some pointers where they were thinking of something slightly different, so I can make those changes.

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We did a few more rehearsals today, but we all felt fairly certain on our performance choices so most of today was dedicated to finalising production choices (location, equipment etc.) so I wasn't particularly needed.

I finalised my costume with our costume designer, Grace. I feel in a lot of the earlier scenes, when we see the teenagers in their natural environment, he's quite often the centre of attention and I wanted the costume to reflect that. This is how we ended up with the bright, colourful costume that I feel compliments the performance.

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With this being the first day of filming, I didn't quite know what to expect. Considering that, I'd say it went well.

First thing I did was have my hair and make-up done. I didn't realise how much is needed for the camera so that was a surprise.

After that, we went onto set and rehearsed the scene, before going into filming it.

I felt it was really easy to get into character, I feel Lucas is relatively close to myself personality-wise, so there wasn't much work needed to get into his headspace. It also helped that I have known the entire crew for the better part of two years, so it was easy to work in such a comfortable environment.

I soon realised early into filming about movement, and how important it is to time them perfectly for every take. I think because I am also the editor, I was also thinking about what will make it easier whilst acting - which is a good skill to have anyway as an actor.

We both saved the footage at the end of the day to our own separate hard drives.

Ted did the data-wrangling today, and we plan to take turns after every day of shooting, me tomorrow etc.

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Today we filmed the exterior shots of the teenagers discovering Sally at the window.

The main lesson I learnt today is how harsh the conditions can be when acting. It was freezing temperatures, which actually turned out to be a problem for shooting because the actors were wearing minimal layers for continuity with the other scenes. We had to take short breaks to go inside for warmth.

This required another level of acting, because I was going numb, shivering, my nose was running, so I had to just try and put as much energy as possible into the performance.

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Wren Blue (Director), Hannah Ward (Camera Operator), and me (Actor) on set.

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Today's footage was also filmed in freezing temperatures, but Wren was kind enough to provide us with hand-warmers, so it was slightly more bareable.

In the morning we filmed the opening scene, which is before the film takes a dark twist, so the challenge today was more about pitching the comedy right. One of my favourite things about acting is delivering the jokes so that definitely made it more enjoyable. Also it keeps me invested in the character, being able to perform such variety on the different days.

There was a mix-up with the editing that was needed for this day of filming. A few weeks back we had a brief casual chat outside of the meetings about the possibility of editing the video in a TikTok-esque style, but it was a quick mention with no detail and never mentioned in any of the actual meetings. We had assumed it would be added as a cutaway in post-production so we didn't have it complete for this day. Someone else had to do it as I was needed for my acting role.

The timing wasn't great as well, we had two scenes to film: one in broad daylight, and one night-time interior scene. Due to the daylight sneaking under the curtain, we discovered we couldn't cheat it, so we had to wait six hours for it to turn night time.

In my opinion, this did affect morale slightly as everyone seemed quite drained after six hours of sitting around.

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Left-to-right: Lucy Swindlehurst, Ocean Down, me and Libby Robinson.

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This was my final day performing Lucas in 'The Neighbour'.

A lot of today was spend figuring out how best to get the shots of us through the window, due to issues such as health and safety (we can't actually climb through a window). Coming down from the window looking like I'd just climbed through was something I had to consider in my performance.

The performance today was straight-forward, no dialogue, just movement.

Another thing I had to consider is that me, Tom, and Ocean are in such close proximity when we untie him, so it would have been really easy for me to block them on camera - which I had to avoid.

After this scene, that was a wrap on Lucas. From now on I will just be editing the film. Me and Ted plan to begin at the beginning of next week.

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Today we finally got started on the edit, we were hoping to get it done before Christmas, but that may not be possible as we've only managed to get one scene done so far.

We've ran into a few issues, for example: some of the film appears to have been filmed in 4K and the rest in HD. This isn't a major issue, but compressing the footage may affect the quality.

Shots tend to not quite match up, mainly due to the positioning of the actors. We could cover this up if we had more close-ups to cut to, but we are lacking in close-ups.

Most of the shots are medium shots, and the framing isn't much different between them, so cutting between them doesn't flow very well because actors are visible from similar angles but in slightly different positions.

We noticed Grace fluffed one of her lines on the only useable take, so we are hoping to get her in for ADR at some point if Rohan can organise a time when enough of the crew is free.

Despite only getting the opening few minutes done, I think at least we've ran into a lot of problems so we know how to deal with them now. Tomorrow should be smoother now we've had some practice.

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We edited further through the film, and got slightly more done.

I found Scene 4 was a lot easier to edit and that was the bulk of what we did.

The only major issue today was we had to cut certain shots that the Director wanted to use on filming days, mainly due to continuity issues.

Other than that, it was a smooth process.

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Today we finished the film with all the footage we had. I did all of the putting together of shots in the timeline, with Ted watching and pointing out any issues, with the agreement that he will take charge on the colour grade, music & credits.

We edited roughly 2/3 of the film - it was noticeably easier, I think partially because of what we learnt the past few days.

One issue we ran into was that the shots of the housemates coming through the window all had one student per shot. We didn't have any different type of shot to cutaway to in between, so we had to search until we found a shot that wasn't even part of a take eventually.

When Libby comes through the window, she has a slightly noticeable smirk. We tried it without but it doesn't flow as well, and the smirk is hardly visible anyway. We had no other usable takes, so the decision was made to keep the shot.

Some shots being filmed in 4K actually turned out to be useful eventually because it meant we could crop them to hide continuity errors, equipment in shot etc.

Some scenes we were didn't edit because we are unable to open the footage from one of the SD cards. There should be reshoots next week, but we won't be able to edit them in until after Christmas now as the holidays start tomorrow.

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Over the Christmas holidays we sent a draft of the edit to the Wren for feedback. Today we got back together to make the adjustments they asked for.

We also were able to add in the final scenes, using a combination of the reshoots and the originals - which were recovered over the holidays.

A lot of the feedback Wren asked for we were unfortunately unable to add, for reasons that I have already mentioned on previous posts. Some adjustments were made, mainly for better pacing.

I don't know if I necessarily agree that the film needed to be faster paced, but we made the edits regardless.

We didn't have to spend too long on the edit today, Wren seemed pretty happy with what was have come up with.

As mentioned, I've done most of the work so far, so Ted has agreed to do the colour grade, music and credits tomorrow. He'll then send it to Wren to check over, then we'll do the final edit.

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We arranged to edit today however Ted has had to cancel due to personal issues.

I am unable to get the edit file as we last edited on his PC, and I can't get in touch with him.

We've been advised to edit the previous draft that Ted sent the night before. I personally am not happy with it, however Wren seems to think it is good.

It is also 11 minutes long, which isn't long enough for the brief. I must admit it was a bad oversight on my part, however somehow everyone in the cast and crew was also convinced it was meant to be 10 minutes long.

We noticed early enough that we could have submitted a 15 minute cut if I could get access to the edit file, however this was not to be.

I am happy with my work though, I think the continuity editing in particular is really strong.