As you can see from previous posts I have put a lot of effort into organising the shoots and creating efficient schedules with realistic timescales, and utilising resources and availability to best effect.
I was really pleased with the way the day went. There were a few 11th hour re-arrangements which I had to sort out and re-schedule. Tango Man wanted to change the meeting time for an earlier start, which impacted on the crew availability as Luke had to work in the morning. So by bringing the meeting time forward it meant that we would be without our sound man and director for the first hour (Luke was giving Hannah a lift to Hillsborough). Therefore I rearranged things so that Jacob and I met Tango Man at the earlier time of 1100 and we shot the visual pieces of footage for the poetic film which doesn't have synch sound. (The shots of Tango Man walking down the street, for which I chose three different locations so as to imply some distance walked, and the shot of him turning to stand in front of the Owls sign on the stadium.) I doubled up as director for these pieces and it all went very smoothly. Paul (Tango Man) is a very friendly co-operative man and was happy to do these scenes first. After we had completed that part of the filming schedule Jacob and I went down to Hillsborough Park to film some atmos shots of the stadium from different, interesting angles while Tango Man went to the Hillsborough Club to meet his friends having agreed to meet us there to conduct the interview at 1215. As we were setting up for the filming of the pieces in the park Luke and Hannah arrived and we went through what we had shot so far and I briefed them on the risk assessment issues (as I had done with Jacob earlier). We then shot the footage in the park and walked down to the Hillsborough Club.
When we got to the club it was already busy with football supporters so I got permission from the manager to use the function room in which to film the interview with Tango Man.
I should say at this point that we have already discussed the interview with Paul (Tango Man) and explained that we are going to conduct and film the same interview three times, each time in a different setting. The questions will remain the same, unless we think we have missed something and put a new question in, and we will choose the most appropriate footage in the edit. It might be that we use all the footage from one interview or we use different settings. I'll discuss this with Hannah (Director) and Joe (Editor) at the rough cut edit stage. In the meantime Joe will use the available interview footage to construct his assembly.
The interview went really well. In response to the first question, although it was an open question, Tango Man gave a very brief answer so Hannah asked if he could reply using the question in his reply, which he did for the next few answers.
After we had finished the interview (and tidied the function room up and put it back to how it was) we went back to the car to sort out the equipment for the next lot of filming. I took the Z1 camera and the Marantz up to Scraith Wood which overlooks the whole of Hillsborough, and started filming the long shots of supporters going in the stadium gates and recording the sound of the crowd in the ground.
Luke, Hannah and Jacob went into the match to do a recce of Tango Man's match day rituals and work out where he stands. For this they took in two Flip cameras and got bits of footage as to what goes on at the match.
This may or may not be used in the final film. I am still trying to negotiate getting official filming access inside the stadium but am finding it hard to get authorisation. The stadium manager has referred me back to the communications department, so this issue is still ongoing. In case we can't get authorisation to film in the ground I am currently trying to locate other found footage of Tango Man and seeking permissions to use those. It is important that we have footage of Tango Man doing his thing!
After half time I moved down to the stadium to record crowd noise at close, low level. I made a decision to not go back to Scraith Wood to film the crowds leaving the stadium as I was getting good footage of the supporters coming out of the stadium on Penistone Road. Shortly before the end of the game Luke, Hannah and Jacob came out and Jacob took over filming and Luke took over sound recording.
As I wrote in the Crew Risk Assessment document the only time that the big equipment was out in front of other people was when all four of us were together after the game had finished and we had already met up outside the stadium. During the pre-match filming and the inside the ground we had stayed with our team, so I am pleased and relieved that we were able to do the filming without any safety concerns. The Risk Document that I set up and briefed in response to the moderator's comments on ParaShoot really worked well.
I am really pleased with a lot of the footage that we got. Jacob and I sat with Joe today (Monday) and went through the rushes with him, as he is going to start work on them now. The picture quality is good. I personally think the background for the interview is a bit bland, but as I said, we are going to do the interview a couple more times so we can chose the best one when we have them all in.
I think the day was a great success, well organised, well executed and it's a huge bonus that the whole team is really enthusiastic about the project and that Tango Man is such a co-operative guy. This is proving to be a fun project to work on.
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