Day Five

For the fifth shoot day we began by shooting the big reveal of the film. The scene took place on a Manchester estate just off Upper Brook Street. The actual location had been secured through some serious grass roots producing from Jayden Murphy and myself. We had spent a great deal of time in pre-production knocking door to door pitching the film to strangers and asking if it would be possible to use the front door of their house in the film. I had a very specific aesthetic in mind and even though this was a lengthy process I think it is in a directors craft not to settle for second best on their vision. I am slowly but surely compromising less with every film I am involved in and eventually we secured a house owned by a lovely woman called Andrea. The scene itself was great, and will hopefully hit audiences hard.

After completing this scene we moved on and filmed a few more intimate scenes as the daylight faded, finishing off with another section of the opening title sequence.

Day Three

Day three all took place within the confines of a small room, in Fallowfield, Manchester, the bedroom setting of our protagonist, Alex. The day was split into two halves, filming two separate scenes in the film. The morning was a challenging scene, consisting of an intimate moment in bed between the couple at the centre of the story. Whilst shooting these scenes I asked that all crew members that didn’t need to be in the room to leave. I even insisted that the clapper loader leave between takes. As long as the shot was set and ready to shoot then I didn’t want anything that could make the actors feel uncomfortable and detract from their performances. The scene was intimate and so I felt the need to keep that feeling on set. And, once again, rehearsals helped to get the actors to this point. Committed actors shouldn’t shy away from intimacy in scenes but allowing time for rehearsals gives them time to become comfortable with each other.

The second half of the day included much more technical direction, working on camera movement, to build a montage sequence. The actors knew their roles and had to practice patience as we worked on setting up tracking shots and framing polaroid camera flashes. I think we did nine takes of one particular tracking shot, which turned out great in the end.

Day One

The first shoot day consisted of a number of different locations and scenes, all of which were the less demanding of the film, allowing the crew and the cast to slip into the production with ease. Everyone had the chance to properly meet and work together on relatively stress free scenes and I think this really helped to get the production of to a good start. We filmed on location in Manchester and Salford working on the title sequence and a few smaller scenes.

INTRODUCING THE CREW…

burnsidefilm:

PRODUCER - Jayden Murphy

DIRECTOR - Jack Bottomley

DP - Paddy McGowan

1st AC - Nagwa Rahman

CLAPPER LOADER - Kalveer Sandhu

SOUND RECORDIST - Simon Kirk

SOUND ASSISSTANTS - Chris Wood, Tom Horrobin

PRODUCTION DESIGNER - Kylie Simpson

MAKE-UP - Lauren Wright, Ruci Ratna

EDITOR - Jack Bottomley

COLOUR GRADING - Nagwa Rahman

COMPOSER - Simon Mawson

Written By Jack Bottomley

Day Six

The last day of the shoot consisted a very relaxed scene filmed in a sunny garden in Ladybarn. It was a relaxed way to round off the shoot with the only demanding aspect being the use of a crane to capture birds-eye shots of our actors. We had originally talked about using a tripod but to get above the actors and frame them perfectly, a crane seemed the best option. This scene took the entire morning but was over relatively quickly with no problems, ending the shoot on a high note.

Overall, this was smoothest production I have ever worked on and was a great learning curve for me as a writer, director and filmmaker. I think it’s always a good process to critique yourself and recognize your weaknesses during a production in the hope of improving yourself. Looking forward to finishing the final film and applying everything I learnt on Burnside to my next short.

Day Four

This was another demanding day for the whole cast and crew. However, the structuring of a shoot dates is really important and I find that breaking up the more difficult shoot dates between more relaxed ones makes the filming process a whole lot easier on everyone. This was a conscious choice between myself and the films producer, Jayden Murphy. The morning began in another pub location, this time in Didsbury, and was under the same circumstances. Arrive, set-up, shoot, and leave before the pub opened at half eleven. I think the most complicated aspect of these two pub scenes was the lighting set-ups. Our DoP, Paddy McGowan, had to work pretty fast arranging the lighting so we could shoot with speed. The scene itself was really exciting to shoot. It was the penultimate scene in the film, with some physically demanding performances from the actors. The film is currently in the edit and this scene has come together particularly well.

In the afternoon, we moved back onto Fallowfield, Manchester, and shot another stylized and demanding scene. This was an interesting process as we were shooting this especially intended for the plug-in Twixtor, used to create slow motion footage, but the performances captured had to be strong, and were absolutely vital to the film. So, as a director, finding the balance between technical aesthetic and actors performances is a difficult process.

Day Two

The second shoot day was much more demanding. In the morning we were shooting the opening scene, which takes place in a pub, located in Withington, Manchester. We obviously had no budget to hire the space and so instead we organized to arrive early, set up, shoot, and leave before the customers started to arrive, which was a pretty limited period of time to keep to. So we arrived at 7.30 and began immediately. The scale of the shoot was something that I hadn’t dealt with up to this point. On this particular morning, I was dealing with the biggest crew of people I’ve ever been in charge of and I couldn’t have enjoyed it more. As a writer/director, overseeing the set design, the actors, the extras and the lighting department is a really exciting process because you can see your vision building on set. In the end we shot a series of establishing shots with a group of extras before moving onto the main pocket of the scene with our two leads, Rik Melling and Mairi Macfarlane. After shooting this scene I can’t stress enough the importance of rehearsals. Improvisation and creativity when perfecting performances is vital, and it’s something I experimented with a great deal in rehearsals, but having the scene set in stone ready for the shoot days allows for a speedy shoot, and under the given circumstances that’s exactly what we needed.

After this scene was completed we moved on to shoot the final scene of the film, in a rainy Ladybarn.

Burnside Shoot Diary: A Director’s Perspective

The shoot on Burnside was six days of principal photography, split into three, two day, stints. For a ten minute short, with numerous locations and relatively large crew, this was definitely the easiest way to structure the production, allowing breathing space and time to plan in between. With funding in place a straight week would have made more sense, but under no-budget circumstances, scheduling a shoot this way helps everyone involved plan their lives around the production, and I would like to thank in advance everyone who was involved in helping us bring Burnside to life.

MEET THE CAST…

burnsidefilm:

Our leads Rik Melling and Mairi MacFarlane; portraying Alex and Lucy, the teenagers at the center of the story.

Supporting Cast:

Jack Johnson as Billy.

Tony Schumacher as Lucy’s Dad

Phil Chadwich as the Pub Landlord.