Filming

The first day of filming took place in Prime Studios. We didn't have a lot of footage to cover, and most of the time there was spent setting up the shot. We had a black sheet, which we put on a C stand and cut holes into, so that the male actor could put his hands through them and grab at our protagonist. The result was a dark and disturbing image. We regularly checked in with our actress to ensure that she was comfortable, and made sure that she knew that we could take a break whenever she wanted. This didn't take very long, and we finished early in time for the director to have a rehearsal with the actors.

The next couple of days took place at the director's house. As a genuine student house, we felt that this would be the perfect location to stage a student house party. As we were filming day for night, we had to go around the house and tape bin bags and sheets to all of the windows to stop any sunlight coming through. This took quite a while, the crew were on set two or three hours before filming just to set up. The filming itself went very well. Due to the severity of the issue we were portraying, it was of the utmost importance to us that everyone was comfortable, especially the actors. We regularly checked in on everyone to ensure they were alright, and if the actors ever needed five minutes to take a breather they were absolutely welcome to it. There were some big changes to the shot list on set, which meant that we finished earlier than scheduled. Mostly there were no problems, but we did have to evacuate just before the last take on one of the days because the carbon monoxide alarm went off. This wasn't a problem, we sent our actress home and picked up the shot the next day.

There were concerns about filming in the directors house, as we didn't want to be too comfortable in our surroundings and not work as hard as we could. However, I think it worked out for the better. Morale was not a problem as everybody was comfortable, and the atmosphere was right for the scenes that we were filming. I don't think that the footage would have looked as good and as natural if we were filming in a studio setting. 

- Hannah Bowler