Video Project 2025 by Isabelle Jackson

My Roles

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 08:08:39 UTC

For the duration of this module, I was given the role of actor and props/set dressing. These are the roles I was hoping to get, so I was quite pleased and excited.

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 09:28:04 UTC

As an actor, I began to mark up the script so that I could have a brief guide of what to do throughout. Here is an example from the first page of the script.

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 10:40:35 UTC

I marked up a separate script for prop/set dressing with ideas that I could relay to the others in my department. Here is an example from the community centre scene.

Script read

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 10:51:57 UTC

All of the actors met with the director, assistant directors, and production assistants to have a script read through. This allowed us to have a feel for our characters and discuss any ideas we may have for them. It was then revealed that as well as the role of Lena, which I had to do a self tape for with a monologue I wrote, I would also be reading in as Sophie - Lena’s sister.

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 11:11:28 UTC

On the props/set dressing teams chat, we discussed different props we would need for each scene, how we would be able to source them and tried to arrange who would bring what. One challenge I faced in this module was sourcing the props. As money is tight, I was not able to go and buy props for us to use. However, I still sourced what I could get for free - for example recyclable coffee cups and stirrers for the community centre scene, and things to set dress the apartment such as clothes and a notepad.

Rehearsals

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 11:17:48 UTC

When doing rehearsals, we ran through the script while the camera crew played around with shots, and the lighting crew experimented with different tones. It was a little difficult as not everyone was able to show up, and it seemed to be more rehearsals for the technical crew, however I stepped in for anyone that was missing and we were able to have a few run throughs with the cast.

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 11:23:32 UTC

Group meeting in rehearsals

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 11:24:27 UTC

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 11:28:31 UTC

Costume

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 11:30:36 UTC

I met with the costume department to have a fitting and see whether the clothes they selected fit well, if they were a good choice and to make sure the assistant directors were happy with the outfit

Filming begins!

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 11:35:47 UTC

We started filming scenes 1 and 3 at the apartment location. Our call time was 8:30am to 5pm, and so it was a very long day. Ironically, we actually lost one of the socks that is meant to be ‘lost’ in the script, and so we spent roughly 30 minutes looking for the sock as a crew!

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 11:47:10 UTC

Once we had finished the apartment scenes, it was time to move onto the community centre scene. As this is the longest scene in the script, we spread filming over two 8-5:30 days to ensure we had enough time to film everything. In hindsight, it was a good job we scheduled the two days as, due to some problems with costume, we had to reshoot the entire thing on the second day.

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 11:54:18 UTC

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 11:57:21 UTC

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 12:02:17 UTC

Last but not least, we had the lake scene to film. As this is an external scene, it was tricky in terms of sound, lighting, and the public. One lady did not take being politely asked to just move out of shot for two minutes very well, and so we tried to work around her instead. Also, with it being a very hot and sunny day, we were wary of not only the crew getting hot and bothered, but the equipment overheating. To combat this, we filmed in a shaded area for most of the day. We eventually got all scenes and shots filmed, and it was time to hand it over to the editors!

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 12:04:50 UTC

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 12:06:09 UTC

making sure we are protected from the sun!

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 12:08:36 UTC

ADR

ijackson3 — 2025-05-09 12:11:23 UTC

As some of the audio from the lake scene was muffled, I was called in to redo some lines in the voice recording studio at uni. I had the footage on the monitor so that I could say my lines as I talk, almost like a dub.