Filming Day!

Today was the day for 'Sleep', the first of four days of filming! With this as the only day to film all the office scenes, we were on a very strict schedule! With it being the office scenes, only one of our three main performers was required - our 'Ruth'. Thankfully for me, director Iona Smith had the scenes being filmed in order, which made things a lot simpler in terms of knowing which changes were needed when as in the office scenes there are eight changes. It did still, however, present multiple opportunities to gain experience in costume and set continuity. It went incredibly well, the scenes ran mostly to time, everyone was in good spirits!

The call time was 8:45 to be taken to the site, with my two bags of costumes - I arrived a little early and used the time (and a cheese grater) to finish breaking down the shoes for 'Seduction'. At 9 we headed to the site and our actress went straight into make-up while the technical people went about setting up the lighting and filming equipment and I laid out the wardrobe.



With the first scenes filmed, we had another last minute addition arrive! The extra to play 'Ruth's boss, when he arrived I requested a couple of changes to make him look a little more like an office professional (removing a wristband, not wearing the jumper over his white shirt and not doing up the very top button of the shirt) and with that done, we were all set to start filming again.

After getting 'Ruth' into her first costume, it became apparent there was a minor hitch in an extra arriving, and a stand in was needed - yes, I have a very small cameo appearance near the beginning of the film! The director requested that I fill in.



It was fascinating to watch the difference between interior and exterior filming. Considering lighting, ambient deflect and direct, with shadows in odd places because of it, sound levels, the minutae of shot continuity and costume continuity it was a busy day, with every scene shot and reshot for angles and for a better take for either sound or visuals.

The idea of the costume changes between scenes that all followed on from each other by action and purpose was to be to show her progression through the week getting more and more dishevelled, exhausted and haggard as her insomnia progresses. This was the third costume change, where 'Ruth' has started to go from being just rumpled to uncaring about her appearance - she's not checked her shirt and there's a button gapping, her shoes are sThis was the team filming the dropping of the handbag in close up. The problem with this shot was that in order to get it to focus properly it had to be dropped to a precise point, but as the shot was being done close to the ground in close up using tape to mark the spot wasn't an option, so a penny was used as a more subtle, commonplace marker.

After this scene we moved into the kitchen, where a more immediate action was to take place that directly involved costume! There needed to be a spillage, done to an exact location and way to the dress that 'Ruth' was to be wearing. Due to budget, I had three dresses for this, one pre-stained for the accommodation shots to be done the following day, and two for the action shot today - one and a spare in case it went wrong. Due to the fact that there were only the two dresses and so two chances to get the take right, I will admit I was nervous.  

The spillage was meant to be red fruit tea, very symbolic, needed to be spilled and soak into the dress at a certain point. The first time this was tried, the tea was not only too weak, but it failed to soak into the dress at all but instead glanced off and onto the floor. This meant that while the take was unsuccessful, the dress was unmarked and therefore good for a second take! This time myself and director Iona mixed in a cross between multiple fruit tea bags and fruit squash to try and get the colour strong enough to be effective.
The second take was attempted, and once again failed to soak into the dress. This called for more drastic measures as we were now at risk of seriously running over time. I took the pre-stained dress and re-wet over the stain to try and make it look fresh, but other then making it look wet, the stain did not look fresh. Because of this, while the actress was wearing the costume I had to use one of the fruit tea bag to make the stain fresh.
This worked to not only make the stain more authentic but will mean that it will match perfectly in continuity when they continue the filming with it tomorrow as it will, in fact, be the same dress! The stain, despite looking more pink then I would perhaps have preferred, did look incredibly effective on camera.

Now the costumes are all handed over, with all the rest of the costumes self explanatory and requiring a minimum of costume changes, and its back on to Remix Gold with exactly one week to go until the show!