Filming Journal

As I wasn't familiar with the actor the first thing my partner did was to introduce me to him, he was very friendly and said he was willing to do anything we asked. We looked over all the rooms as we wasn't sure on the dimensions from the photographs he sent us. We decided that we are to film on the top floor bedroom (as it captures lots of light), first staircase, short second staircase, kitchen, lounge, hallway and outside. We brought along the storyboard, shot-list and script for the first day of shooting. To much of our surprise for filming in January the weather was bright and sunny meaning we would be able to get lots of high definition shots.
My partner supplied us with some professional film equipment such as a 'ManFrotto' tripod. The tripod allowed us to explore lots of still shots. We decided to work through our film shots in chronological order as we thought that further on in the editing process it would be easier to sort out the different shots. when we were filming throughout the day we realised that maybe we got carried away with exploring the still shots so we went back and added some panning shots as it will make the story flow when it comes to editing.
It was essential to keep our actor informed on the storyboard so he had an idea of the future shots we are planning to film so he can get into the role of somebody suffering with Agoraphobia. The only issue we had with our actor was when we asked him to do a facial expression he'd over exaggerate it as he thought it would have a better outcome when really it looked unrealistic, but as we didn't have a script for the actor to learn it allowed us to spend more time on figuring out the perfect facial expressions suited for each shot.
Because the house was located on a main road there were some background noises which may interfere with the audio therefore we re-shot some shots ready for a selection for when we come to editing. Also the actors wife was making important phone calls in a room nearby, so we politely asked if she could shut the door to her office so it does not interrupt with our production.
Getting a costume was no problem. My partner Cordelia Skype called John previously in the week, they both went through his wardrobe and found a costume which fitted to our costume brief. We just informed him at the end of the first day to keep the clothes how they are so he can wear them again.
Overall shooting took two days. We were able to spread it over a course of two days as the weather wasn't a big issue for our filming. To manage our time sufficiently we tried to film most on the first date so we could re-watch the clips we filmed and if errors it gave us time re-film on the second day.
For filming we made sure we came prepared therefore we brought a spare SD card and a battery pack.
Overall filming took 4 hours.