Live Brief 2 - ManiaFrame Shoot - Penshaw Monument

One of our main shots and main scenes in the short film ManiaFrame, is a teashop scene which we filmed at Penshaw Monument near Sunderland. The monument is a great landmark and a great place to film as its such a sight and adds production value to our film. It's open to the public so a main issue was just making sure we didn't have any interruptions or people walking into shots. We had quite a few difficulties with the weather filming at Penshaw as it's quite high up so we had to carry the equipment up to it and it was quite windy which was an issue for sound and had the cast and crew very cold throughout the shoot. Time issues prevented us from getting all the shots the first time round and our second trip had a problem with the film camera and the film jamming preventing us from filming anything. Our third visit was successful as we used the Blackmagic camera due to our upcoming deadline and not having enough time to shoot on film.

We were able to capture quite a few establishing shots and dolly shots on the 16mm the first visit and was quite a smooth shoot apart from the cold weather and the crew took quite some time setting up which had us unable to capture all the shots we'd like as we ran out of time with the actors. This resulted in adding a second shoot day at Penshaw which was quite an inconvenience as we already had such a tight filming schedule. Our second shoot day didnt go successful at all, we drove all the way to the monument and carried all the equipment up to the location and was unable to capture any footage due to the camera jamming and us been prevented to fix it causing us to call of the shoot. This resulted in a third and final shot day after easter when we should've been in pre-production which delayed our editing time and we needed to film digital as we wouldn't have enough time to get the film processed and edited before the deadline. We filmed on the Blackmagic and had quite the successful shoot day but still had complications with the wind which was a pain for Jamie who was on sound.

After seeing the footage come back the location was the perfect choice and looks fantastic on film. The production went to many locations and I feel it added production value to the film and gives it a look, feel and style that many over student films lack by filming in simple and common locations which takes you out of the film. Despite the difficulties that we had, the shots at Penshaw were great experience for filming in public places and ended up being very valuable. If we were to do it again, we would probably try to get more coverage but we would also be more efficient with already filming their on multiple occasions.