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COSTUME AND SFX MAKE-UP TESTS

15/02/2025

We held the costume tests for Olivia and Erin at mine and India's flat a couple days before the shoot so that we could ensure some time to carry out any adjustments. India had collected 3 costumes per character to indicate that there has been a passing of time. Each character has a different colour palette - pink for Alison, red for Bonnie and blue for Mr Mann. Unfortunately Sophie could not make these tests as she was unwell, however we FaceTimed her and made sure she was happy with the decisions. We took photos from all angles to send to our sound designer, Gaby, to ensure that she was happy with the costumes and to make sure that there was a good place to attach the radio mics. We also did some walking tests to make sure the actors were comfortable in each costume.

After a couple of adjustments, we were all happy with the costumes and we moved on to the SFX make-up. Paige, our fantastic make-up artist arrived and we she started the test on Erin, who was going to have the most extensive special effects. We first tried the sliced forehead and made adjustments to make the gap bigger to ensure that we could safely tamper with it during takes. We did a patch test on Erin first and ran her through what we were thinking before starting the tests so that she was comfortable with it.

Paige started with creating a sliced effect on the top of Erin's forehead and once we were happy with the size of the slice, we began to add fake blood, starting slowly and adding more and more until Sophie was happy with how it looked. This is what will be applied to both Erin and Olivia during the surgery scene and Paige has been working on fake skin to be peeled from this effect.

The last effect that we tested was the muscle texture for the final scene in the warehouse.

The effect looked fantastic, however because our flat was quite warm, the make-up didn't cure as well as we'd hoped. However, the location that we will be at for this scene is quite cold, so Paige was confident that it would cure much better. Following this, Paige sent us more examples of what the muscle texture would look like and with Sophie's approval, we were good to proceed with the shoot.

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CASTING

Auditions - 31/01/2025

Our auditions were held at Merchiston campus on the 31st January. We had an extensive list of applicants, which we had emailed detailing the room and time of their auditions. I was on my way back from a shoot in Fife for the first half of the day so unfortunately I had to miss the first section of auditions, however they were attended by our production manager, Mara, our writer, Hayley and director, Sophie. Prior to every audition, we asked each actors' permission to film their audition so that we could all go back and refresh our memories.

Our audition schedule

Unfortunately, we had quite a lot of drop outs on the day, however this meant that I only missed three in person auditions. All in person auditions who applied for Alison also auditioned for Bonnie, so it was nice for us to see each person's range. After each audition, Sophie, Hayley, Mara and I wrote extensive notes and compared.

At the end of the day, we discussed our preferences and wrote a list of our top 3 auditions for each character. We did not want to make a decision on the day as we still had self-tapes to review, so I ensured to keep my mind open.

A couple days after auditions, Sophie, Hayley and I met and watched all of the self-tapes, alongside rewatching the in person audition tapes. We agreed upon our actors for Alison, Bonnie and Mr Mann:

Alison - Olivia McGeachy

Bonnie - Erin Scanlan

Mr Mann - Joe Dingwall

Sophie and Hayley's main argument for casting Olivia was her enthusiasm around the role and her incredible performance, including her ability to cry on command. Despite Olivia being quite a bit younger than the character, she brought a sense of maturity and also, vulnerability to the role.

We all were incredibly impressed by Erin's immediate switch into character and were immediately convinced by her performance as Bonnie - she brought sass, confidence and even vulnerability to the role in the short excerpt that we provided.

Joe's performance as Mr Mann was incredibly strong and we were all very impressed with how well he adapted to direction when Sophie asked to try some different approaches.

Actor's meeting - 05/02/2025

Something that Sophie and I really wanted to emphasise, was the importance of chemistry between the characters, so I set up a meeting between Olivia and Erin. I sent each of them the full script prior to this meeting so they could read it over and come up with their own perceptions of the story to bring to us to discuss.

We began the meeting discussing the premise of the film and Olivia asked how the story came about. After discussing this, Olivia explained that she loved the character of Alison and that as a woman of colour who never truly felt like she fit into western beauty standards, she related to Alison on another level. This really resonated with me as I have also had this experience growing up. I was careful when it came to casting, to ensure that the actors did not feel the way that the characters did, and this is something that we discussed at length with Olivia and Erin.

We read through the script a couple of times out loud, and allowed both actors to explore their characters in different ways as much as they wanted.

After this, we discussed availability for rehearsals with Sophie, and they signed their agreements detailing their pay and hours for the shoot. Additionally, we organised costume fittings and make up tests.

Olivia (left), Erin (right)

Both actors are incredibly charismatic and excited about the project. Additionally, they had fantastic chemistry, which makes me very excited for the shoot itself!

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LOCATIONS - MR MANN'S OFFICE

For Mr Mann's office, we wanted to stay consistent to the clinical feel of the audition hall, so I started my search looking at office spaces around Edinburgh. I know that there are a few in New Town - more specifically along Rose Street and Princes Street, so I started looking at rental spaces there.

I created a table of potential options, detailing location, limitations and fees, and sent them to Sophie, India and Euan to have a look. Despite a lot of them having a blue wall that we were looking at for the office, they all agreed they liked the wide open space of the white room.

We also discussed the possibility of combining the locations for the office, the doctor's office scene and the Aesthetician's office scene, where we would block off a corner of a blank room and redress according to the colour scheme and plan for each room. This would take a lot of time and planning and I could tell that there was a bit of uncertainty regarding this option from the other HODs - so I kept looking for other options.

I called some of the office spaces, however after talking to a few rental companies, it became clear that these spaces were mainly for longer term (3+ months) rental and it would not work for our couple days of shooting.

HIDDEN DOOR ARTS - accidental recce

During a recce and prop search that India, Hayley and Euan conducted a few weeks after the initial recce at the Paper Factory, Alistair - our point of contact at Hidden Door mentioned to them that they had office spaces that we could use as well as the warehouse. Alistair explained that these spaces were left as they were used before the factory was abandoned and that we could use them as we liked as long as we put everything back the way it was. It so happened that the location had blue bulletin boards, curtains and cabinets which Alistair said we were welcome to use for the film. India called me to show me the space and after running it by Sophie, we were happy to confirm it for two days along side the half day for the main warehouse. The space also had extensive space for us to set up outside the room itself and even had an area with sofa's for our cast to relax. Something to consider with this location now that we have it for longer than half a day - is that with us filming in Feb, everyone will need to wrap up warm and I will need to provide extra bottles of water as there is very little water supply in the area.

I emailed Pete and discussed a potential box fee for all three days, and we managed to secure it for a total of £240.

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LOCATION - WAREHOUSE

Despite the warehouse scene being the shortest (3-4 shots max.) it is incredibly important as it is the point in the film where the surreal world breaks and we see the darker side to the industry.

I started looking through gumtree for people selling warehouse spaces as there looked to be a lot in Fife or Stirling.

While these options were good, I was a bit worried about accessibility and travel, so I prioritised looking for places closer to Edinburgh - especially with our tight shooting schedule with lots of locations to cover.

When discussing the new version of the script with this newly added location with Euan, he mentioned an arts charity near the Gyle Centre called Hidden Door Arts which is looking to open to the public soon. I emailed the charity and after a few email exchanges I managed to organise a location recce.

WAREHOUSE RECCE - 25/01/2025

During this recce, I took note of any hazards and had discussions with the crew about what room we would like to use. Something of note was that the location itself was a little tricky to find on foot and everyone needs to be let in and out by an official at Hidden Door as it is a secure location.

When we were exploring the warehouse, we discovered some furniture that was not in use - the next event is in June and after discussing with Pete and Hazel at Hidden Door, we agreed to borrow some things and return them at the end of our shoot.

We loved the main warehouse as it replicated the large, empty space that Sophie and Hayley were looking for and it also gave some interesting opportunity for sound. It also had many side rooms that we could use as a green room including one with a sofa.

We landed on this location and agreed a final price of £100 for 4 hours.

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LOCATIONS - FLAT

Unexpectedly, the flat has been the hardest location to secure as it would mean that we would be filming in someone else's space - and they would have to be happy with us moving things around and as a crew we would be responsible for any damages. Additionally, the film has quite tricky and limited requirements - including, pink walls in the bathroom and living room. This has proven quite tricky as Edinburgh has very traditional looking flats, so an alternative I discussed with Sophie and India, was to bring in set dressing (blankets, wall decor and pillows) that were pink to draw out the colour.

I was however, determined to find a flat that had the colours that we wanted, so using the colour palette I kept a constant eye on Airbnb and also Zoopla (hoping to find flats that were in between tenancies).

The first place I inquired about was this one bedroom flat in Cramond, that had nice pastel colours. Sophie and India seemed hopeful that we could transform this place by bringing more pink and oranges into the space, so I contacted the owner to see what they thought. Unfortunately, they would not allow a crew of our size - even after I downsized the number of people for a skeleton crew.

I was very lucky with the next find however.

This flat in Marchmont had the pink walls and decor that we were looking for and after sharing this with Sophie and India, they even said that we didn't need to bring too many props!

I contacted the owner and she seemed more than happy to accomodate us.

RECCE - 12/02/2025

Due to this recce being quite last minute, I was not able to attend unfortunately, however Sophie and India were able to have a look round. They loved the space and I sent them the same questions that I had for the audition hall recce and the location seemed to adhere to all requirements! The thing that surprised me the most was the pink bathroom! Despite it being quite a dull pink, I think we can bring it out a bit more in the grade.

Overall, we were really happy with this location and I booked it for one night, so that we had time to clean it before we left - costing £233 of the budget.

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LOCATIONS - Audition Hall

For the audition hall location, I focused mainly on dance studios and theatre halls as we wanted to match the clinical and non-descriptive atmosphere in the script.

Sophie made an inspiration board for each location to help me with my search and this made it so much easier to gauge Sophie and Hayley's vision for the space.

My initial search lead me to a list of dance studios around Edinburgh, and a couple of theatres:

Dance Base - Grassmarket

Morningside Dance Academy

Simon Says Dance

Dance4Passion

PASS Edinburgh College

Traverse Theatre

Pleasance Theatre

Church Hill Theatre

The main limitation to using theatres is that the spaces are often too dark for what we were looking for and would not match the consistency of colour for the rest of the film, so I wanted to focus my search on dance studios. The most common challenge I ran into here was that our shoot dates coincided with the beginning of term for a lot of the dance schools, so many couldn't provide us access.

After more research into university spaces, I found the Edinburgh University Student's Association (EUSA) which had a wide range of spaces that could be used.

These locations would stretch our budget significantly, so I sent them an inquiry email with our dates to see if they were willing to make a deal as it is a student project.

Unfortunately, none of these dates or times worked for us as we needed a full day (approx. 10-6) to shoot the opening scene.

After a couple of rejection emails from other places, I contacted Dance Base - our crew's favourite location out of the ones I collected, however also the most expensive initially.

Fortunately for us, Dance Base was willing to rent out the space to us for a discounted rate that fit perfectly with our budget!

I organised a recce for the 7th Feb so that our crew could take a look at the space and decide for sure that it works for what we plan to do.

DANCE BASE RECCE - 07/02/2025

During this recce, I had a list of things that I wanted to note:

Did the location fit our vision?

Did it adhere to health and safety regulations?

Can we fit all cast and crew in here? Would we need a skeleton crew?

Is there space to put belongings?

Is there space for actors/crew to relax whilst not on set?

Do we have access to chairs for people to sit down during the shoot day?

Are there any props that we could get access to from the space or would we be providing our own.

When in the space the first thing that caught our attention was the big mirror and window. Luckily, there were black curtains that meant we could cover these up to control light and any shadows.

Sophie, India and I (and Euan on FaceTime) discussed possible composition for the shots and used the space to figure out the best possible direction and angle to shoot in. We took some concept photos using Hayley as a stand-in. Whilst India and Sophie discussed this more in regards to the script, I took note of the plug sockets in the room (for Léo to DIT), and also took note of environmental noise in the surrounding area. The main challenges we might face with this location is traffic noise as we are in the centre of the city, and any other sound from the building such as music or singing from other studios. We did a little test and had Hayley stand outside and speak loudly with the door closed as I stood inside the room. Despite this not being the most accurate test in the world, I ran this by Gaby and she was confident that she could make it work.

One of the doors in the room led to a little corridor which had a table, stacks of chairs and even more plug sockets. I spoke to Kathryn at the desk and confirmed that we would be able to have access to all of these on the day of the shoot. There was also a little lobby with a table and chairs directly outside the room which would be perfect as a green room for actors. If that doesn't work as well, we have access to the green room and kitchen downstairs - meaning that we can make teas and coffees and heat up lunch :)

With everyone happy with this space, I confirmed it with Kathryn - costing us £168, only £8 above our budget for this location.

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Budget - WUTHERED

After finalising the funds raised from the crowdfunder campaign, I was able to solidify the rough budget I had made. I had a meeting with Laura to get some tips on allocating the budget - and I decided to give priority production design and locations.

I split production design into two categories to make it easier for both myself and India - Art Dept. Materials (includes props and prop hire), and Wardrobe/Hair and Make-up. After speaking to Juno (Production Designer for Popper, a graduation film with built sets from last year), I decided to give India just over £600 to work with as sourcing material to build sets will be pricey. I also decided to pay our SFX Make-Up artist a box fee of £175 as it is an ambitious project with quite a lot of requirements.

Sophie and I agreed that we wanted to pay our main cast a £50 day rate. Using my script breakdown I calculated that we had three main cast members who would be on set for a total of 12 days - I allocated £550 for cast. I also set aside funds for paying for food and transport for the supporting actors we aren't paying.

As we have very particular requirements for location, this will also a be a large portion of the budget - I allocated just under £650 for this section. As we are students, I am hoping to reach out to locations that specifically support creatives in Scotland as this may help us stay within our budget.

Finally, travel is also a huge cost to our budget as we are catering to crew, cast, kit and props respectively. I allocated just under £900 for travel in hopes that we can hire a van which can help us mitigate fuel costs for the week. Unfortunately we only have one driver in our crew, so I ensured to set aside some contingency in case we have to use his car for anything.

BUDGET UPDATE

Throughout the process of making the film, I have been keeping a budget tracker, asking each HOD to send me receipts and keeping it up to date to ensure we stay within budget.

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Casting Prep - WUTHERED

For casting, I created casting calls to put on facebook - including character descriptions, the audition date and information about pay.

EXAMPLE:

SHORT FILM CASTING CALL

SCREEN ACADEMY SCOTLAND/EDINBURGH NAPIER UNIVERSITY

Aspiring actress Alison Wuther is offered the role of a lifetime by the audition panel - on the condition that she undergoes surgery to swap faces with Bonnie, who the panel deems more conventionally attractive.

Looking for a female presenting actor

Early 20s

Any ethnicity

Auditions - 31st January 2025

Rehearsals in Early February (tbc)

Must be available for shoot dates between 18th Feb - 23rd Feb

Shooting in Edinburgh

ALISON

Alison is a confident, self-assured, very talented and (sometimes) stubborn aspiring actress in her early 20s, auditioning for the role of a lifetime. Alison has secured the role of Love Handle, on one condition - she will have to undergo surgery to swap faces with Bonnie, who the panel think 'has the look'. This slowly begins to split Alison in half as she considers herself, her career and the forces around her.

Please email: 

Your name and age

Your location

The role you are auditioning for 

A headshot/photo

Resume/Reel

Phone number

Accessibility Requirements (if needed)

This is a paid role of a small fee as it is a small production. Food will be provided and full access to images and the film upon completion. 

We are committed to diverse, inclusive casting. For every role please submit without regard to disability, race, age, national origin, ethnic origin or any other basis prohibited by law unless otherwise specifically indicated.

I sent this to Hayley who is in charge of all of the social media templates for her to make it look pretty and match the theme of our social media brand.

I posted these on the Scottish Filmmakers and Actors and Scottish Filmmaking, Acting & Locations groups on facebook. We also shared these on our instagram and got a number of responses! My production manager, Mara, created a spreadsheet for me to input all candidates and I went through all the emails and sent a response with excerpts of the script:

Hello ____________,

Thank you for your interest in our project!

Below I have attached excerpts of the script for you to read at the audition for ____________. Let me know if you have any issues opening them, or have any questions regarding the script.

Auditions will be held at Merchiston Campus on the 31st Jan. Times are still tbc, I will be in touch within the next few days to confirm.

See you soon!

Kind regards,

Saskia Magallona McCullough (Producer)

Mara and I went through and input all candidates in order of characters they will audition for and if they can be at the in person auditions or if they will send in a self-tape.

Sophie also reached out to a couple of actors through social media and she took charge in communicating with them. She sent me their information and I input their information on the spreadsheet.

After getting responses and confirmations from all actors about auditions, Mara sent out an email assigning time slots for each actor and we put together another spreadsheet with the full audition schedule.

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Semester Two Tasks - WUTHERED

Coming into semester two, there are a lot of things that I need to sort out so that my team can get started on things.

Finalise the script

Locations - look at my location research and begin to organise recces for my team to prepare

Cast - make casting calls for auditions by the end of January

Crew - start to finalise secondary crew and support HODs in forming strong departments

FINALISED SCRIPT

LOCATIONS

Once Hayley had sent us the finalised script, I compared it to my original location breakdown that I had made in first semester.

semester 1 location breakdown

updated location breakdown after meeting with Juno Glover

Juno also gave me some good insight into production design budget and how much I should be allocating to costume and props respectively. They also showed me some fantastic prop houses such as Titan Props, Star Nurses and Reset Scenery - which I forwarded to India and Sophie to take a look and make a list.

During a meeting with Euan, he mentioned an arts charity that host events in The Paper Factory, near the Gyle Centre - Hidden Door Arts - so I found the details for the event organiser and sent through an email. I wrote up with a template for emailing locations, detailing the information about our film, potential shooting dates and our intentions for the shoot:

Hello Sir/Madam,

I hope you are well. My name is Saskia Magallona McCullough and I am a fourth year student at Edinburgh Napier studying BA (Hons) Film. I am the producer for a graduation film, which is in collaboration with Screen Academy Scotland, filming the week of the 18th February 2025.

Our graduation film is called Wuthered, a thriller about an aspiring actress, Alison Wuther who is offered the role of a lifetime by the audition panel - on the condition that she undergoes surgery to swap faces with Bonnie, who the panel deems more conventionally attractive. 

We have a short scene set in a __________ and after looking at the pictures at _________, we think the space is perfect. We are fully covered with public liability, which I have attached below. Would we be able to hire the space for a day to shoot this scene? 

Kind regards,

Saskia Magallona McCullough

I found that this template worked well for all kinds of locations and I got a fair number of responses from potential locations for audition halls, warehouses and office spaces. Luckily, Pete from Hidden Door Arts responded pretty quickly and I was able to organise a recce for us to see the space.

The two challenges I have run into trying to find locations has been the flat and the aestheticians/doctor's office. I have always found flats quite tricky to find and for this project, we are trying to find options that either already have quite a stylised feel to it or will allow us to decorate as we like. I am looking on airbnb and have been sharing options with the HODs to see what we can work with.

For the doctor's office, I have suggested the idea of building the set. After talking to Juno Glover, I found that it is completely doable and I think it would work really well for the style of our film. I floated this idea to India, Sophie and Euan and asked them to have a meeting to discuss their options and come back to me with a final decision.

I also floated the idea of building Mr Mann's office as we have three different office scenes - we could keep the backdrop the same but change the colour palette and floor plan for each scene. This does seem like quite a lot of work but I am happy to find other options if this doesn't work.

This location breakdown also allowed me to start working on a rough schedule for the week as due to the high number of locations, we will have to shoot a location a day. I will be working over the next couple of weeks of January to secure locations and get a final decision from the HODs about building a set.

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Winter Break Work - WUTHERED GRAD

My tasks for this break include:

Setting up the crowdfunder page

Meeting with Hayley to discuss fonts and layout for crowdfunder page

Meeting with Sophie about how next semester is going to run

HoD meeting

Workflow meeting

My main priority this semester is to improve the level of communication between departments - as this is something that I feel let us down significantly last semester. I had a meeting, first with Sophie (23/12/2024), and next with Hayley about how we can support each other and the rest of our crew when it came to communication. Additionally, something I would like to see is a bit more proactivity from everyone as this semester is a much heavier load for for everyone. As a creative producer, I aim to encourage collaboration and communication as much as I can in order to get the most out of my team.

Something that Sophie and I discussed is how to improve the workflow on set from what we saw on the test shoot set. We found that there needs to be better communication between departments and better preparation prior to arriving on set. We established that we will have weekly meetings with the crew on Tuesdays at 4:30pm, in order to check in with everyone and additionally bring information from HOD breakdown meetings. We also discussed the importance of all members of crew answering messages regarding availability as it will help me organise meetings, recces and any tests including camera, rehearsals or costume tests.

Now that we had those points agreed on, we organised a date to have a start of term meeting with the crew to raise these expectations with them and have a smooth sailing term.

Crowdfunder Prep

My main job over the winter break was to set up the crowdfunder campaign. I corresponded regularly with Hayley and Léo, who were running the social media pages, and agreed upon a template, date and promotion posts for the launch.

At the end of first semester, we shot our talking heads for our crowdfunder video, where all HODs talked about our aspects of production and all said a big thank you to all of our supporters. Léo, who was also making our crowdfunder video, got to work using the talking heads, archive footage and footage from our test shoot and sent Sophie and I a couple of drafts. Some things that we discussed for the video was to lean into the wacky style of the film and potentially using the bandages that we used for the headshots. We did not end up using the bandages, but I feel that this worked better as we could focus on the content more than the visuals.

Filming our talking heads!

I worked closely with Hayley and Sophie to come up with ideas for the crowdfunder rewards. Our finalised list came to:

£10 - Your name will feature in the final credits of the film, alongside a social media shoutout on our film's official pages!

£20 - You will receive a sneak preview of the film before the official release date. This will be your own personal link, only accessible to you! PLUS - Your name will feature in the final credits of the film, alongside a social media shoutout on our film's official pages!

£30 - You will receive a digital production book filled with the little details that brought the film to life. It will include concept art, past drafts of the script and more!! PLUS - You will receive a sneak preview of the film before the official release date. This will be your own personal link, only accessible to you! PLUS - Your name will feature in the final credits of the film, alongside a social media shoutout on our film's official pages!

£50 - You will receive two WUTHERED postcards designed by members of the crew! PLUS - a digital production book! PLUS - You will receive a sneak preview of the film before the official release date. PLUS - Your name will feature in the final credits of the film, alongside a social media shoutout on our film's official pages!

£100 - You will receive an official WUTHERED poster designed by members of the crew! PLUS - two WUTHERED postcards! PLUS - a digital production book! PLUS - You will receive a sneak preview of the film before the official release date. PLUS - Your name will feature in the final credits of the film, alongside a social media shoutout on our film's official pages!

£200 - You will receive a personalised thank you video from the cast and crew of WUTHERED, including bts footage from the official shoot! PLUS - an official WUTHERED poster! PLUS - two WUTHERED postcards! PLUS - a digital production book! PLUS - You will receive a sneak preview of the film. PLUS - Your name will feature in the final credits of the film and you will get a social media shoutout!

We decided that we were going to launch the crowdfunder on the 2nd January - so I immediately got to work drafting up the page.

I have never set up a campaign like this before, so this was a learning experience for me. I had a lot of fun promoting our film and I am so excited to finally get going on making WUTHERED :)

I have also been following a long on our fellow classmates crowdfunder campaigns and I am so excited to see the outcome of everyone's hard work!

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Mr Balloonhead Man - Final Film

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Mr Balloonhead Man - Post-Production (Grade)

For the grade, Duncan, Gus and I had conversations about how we wanted to create a sense of place using colour. For the flat, we wanted to have the space be warm and welcoming, while the exteriors were all a cold, blue colour.

Gus graded this project, which was so useful as him and Duncan were able to have conversations about the grade in pre-production which helped them plan lighting for the shoot itself. Gus suggested to us that he could make it look like the film was shot on 35mm film, which I liked, however I brought up the fact that we needed motivation for this - a reason why. The 35mm film look took away from the documentary feel that the Sony FX6 gave, a look that none of us really wanted, however due to equipment issues, we had to put up with. There were a few times where I noticed the saturation was way too different in the exterior and interior scenes so I sat with Gus to help him tweak it a bit.

I wrote up a cast and crew list for Gus, putting the credits in the right order for him to add at the end, and found the Film Cult logo for him to use as we used their kit too.

Gus did an amazing job on the grade and I think we successfully managed to create a sense of place alongside camera movements and sound.

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Mr Balloonhead Man - Post-Production (Sound)

After a few meetings with Alex about sound, I was confident that I gave him enough time to experiment with the soundscape. I came into SAS to visit him after the first draft and gave him a few notes about the montage scene - specifically that I thought it could be even more intense, which Duncan agreed with.

I casted Melissa Ainsworth, an MA acting student that I have worked with previously, as Sarah - Mr Balloonhead Man's boss. I organised a voiceover session with her at the screen academy and we were able to add her lines to the interior scene. On set, I had to read the lines (I was not a very good voice actor), so hearing Sarah's character come to life through Melissa made me really excited! Alex then added an effect which made it sound like she was on the other end of the phone, which really added to the scene, giving it more depth and character!!

Duncan and I had a few discussions about the score, with our first idea being the use of Bob Dylan's first album which was copyright free and available for public use. However after a few discussions, we found that Max's dad has a wonderful song which is called Helium Balloon and fits perfectly with our film. We contacted Tristan and he agreed that we could use the song!! The song adds to the heartwarming last scene and is also incredibly catchy, making it a really memorable and wonderful ending.

Alex did a fantastic job with the soundscape, creating a world which showed us the anxiety that Mr Balloonhead Man feels when he steps outside of the comfort of his own flat. My favourite little additions that Alex made are the squeaks when Mr Balloonhead Man moves :)

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Mr Balloonhead Man - Post-production (edit)

The edit for Mr Balloonhead Man was a little difficult to schedule as our editor, Molly, was editing two films this semester despite not being on the module. I am so grateful that she was able to take time to help us out as I have worked with her previously and really admire her work.

Our rough schedule for the edit was to be from the 18th of March to the 4th April, however I knew that this was going to be difficult to achieve because both Molly and I have work placements for a different module. I was 1st AD for Necropolis Munro from the 18th to 20th of March, so I came in to see the first draft on the 23rd, and gave some of my notes. Duncan and I have been in constant communication, so I let him know my thoughts and we had a call to discuss next steps. I also discussed with Molly the dates that both of us would be on placement and also the dates that I would be on set for The Man Who Fell in Love with the Sky, and tried to organise a rough estimate for when I could come in next.

We ended up picture locking on Thursday the 11th, a bit later than I'd hoped, but that is ok because I had scheduled a week of wiggle room for sound so I am not worried about time. Unfortunately, I was not able to see the final film until close to picture lock as when I came into SAS, Molly was not available, however Duncan, Molly and I sat together on the day of picture lock and Molly worked on it until we were all satisfied. Due to scheduling conflicts, we weren't able to get any feedback from lecturers until after picture lock, and we found that after Zoë watched it, there was one shot that we wanted to change. Due to Molly not being on the module and having other commitments, I did not want to go over her head and change anything without her permission, so we came to a compromise which we were all satisfied with and I feel worked out in the end. Even though I want the best outcome for our film, I want to respect the work of my crew and I never want to overstep and change anything without permission. In hindsight, I would have liked to have had more contact hours with the edit, however due to everyone's differing schedules, I understand that we did the best we could. In the future, I would like to improve communication with my team and I will definitely work on this for future projects.

Overall, Molly and Duncan did an incredible job with the edit - specifically the montage scene which I think edited together fantastically! I am really excited to see what Alex has in store for sound :)

[saskiamcc]

Mr Balloonhead Man - Final Shoot day!

17/03/2024

Today started off a bit rough as it was St Patrick's Day and Edinburgh was very busy! Again, this was something I should have taken more into consideration but I will remember this for next time. We started the day off at Duncan's flat and I had planned for a skeleton crew to get some snorri cam footage on the way to meet the actors at the Royal Commonwealth Pool. Duncan drove up with the kit and India met the actors at the pool. Unfortunately, our team arrived a little later than I'd hoped due to foot traffic, however our wonderful actors were great sports and bonded while they waited for us to arrive.

We all took some equipment and walked up to the bench on Queen's Drive. We had the bench from 2pm-6pm and I noticed the rangers from Historic Environment Scotland driving around, so ensured that everyone in the crew wore their hi-vis vests to indicate that we were the crew that had permission to be there. I had the permission letter on hand, and gave a spare to Lachlan just in case the rangers asked.

While we got set up, we realised that we did not have the CO2 box, so India and I found that we could wrap up the matte box outer-box to look like a parcel. This was not ideal, however I think it made sense in the film and it was not a distraction at all. Lev seemed a bit tired of being in the suit today so I ensured that India was on stand-by to take the helmet off whenever we weren't shooting.

The main obstacle we had today was the clouds constantly changing and covering the sun, but we knew that this was going to happen as a result of our decision to film outside. We stick with it and it was a very smooth running shoot day. I spent a lot of the day with our voice actor David, who was posted a little further away from the frame as we needed him in the same location to record lines. I wanted to keep him company as I know it can get quite boring standing around and waiting for set ups. Overall, I think everyone had a good time and we finished with time to spare so Gus could get a lovely shot of Liam and Lev chatting with the sunset in the background. Duncan walked Liam to his bus stop while we packed up the kit and he met us at the bottom with his car to load the equipment in. We ended the day saying our final goodbyes to Mr Balloonhead Man and popped him :(

Overall, the entire shoot was incredibly positive! I was really proud of our team and even though it was a tough couple of days of running around with a camera and sound equipment, the moral was so high and I hope everyone had a wonderful time because I know I did! I am so so excited to get into post-production :)

I am so so grateful for our wonderful cast and crew for coming together to make Fionntán's beautiful script come to life :)

[saskiamcc]

Mr Balloonhead Man - Shoot day 3

16/03/2024

This day was the most difficult day to plan as we had quite a lot of locations with not the most amount of time. I realised when we were doing a rough schedule that this was a big day for the rugby and in hindsight I should have kept this in mind when planning which days we were going to shoot. This meant that we had to be extra careful with safety as when it gets later in the day, the streets will be much busier and on top of that, we need to be careful not to get faces of members of the public in the film as that requires extra permission. This day was mainly for the montage scene of Mr Balloonhead Man walking around the city, so we needed to be as efficient as possible to get the shots we needed.

We started the day off pretty early as I wanted to get some shots when the streets would be as empty as possible. We met at unit base with our skeleton crew - Duncan, Gus, Lachlan, Jack, Gaby, India and our actor Lev. We had planned to have a few extras for this shoot, so for our first shot of the day, we called Alex, our head of post-production sound to be our man on the bike. We did a few takes of this and managed to finally get a shot we were happy with. This shot took longer than we'd hoped due to members of the public walking by quite a lot.

Next we moved on to the shot of the Bam. For this we were initially going to cast Fionntán, however Duncan and I noticed that Fionntán had already been in shots in the house as he was the 'father', so Lachlan, our 1st AD, stepped in to help and he was absolutely brilliant.

Our next shot required two extras who I had cast quite early on into the project. Two regulars from my old work, Ronnie and Michael, had expressed interest in being in our film, so I cast them as the men judging Mr Balloonhead Man as he walked down the street. I left set to collect them from The Scotsman's Lounge, about 15 minutes away. During this time, the crew reshot the scene where Mr Balloonhead Man leaves the flat as we realised that continuity wise, the weather was different from the day we shot it. Despite Ronnie and Michael not being professional actors, they absolutely smashed it and it looked really authentic, I am really excited to show them how it turned out.

Our sound team getting 'ambience noise'

Lev was scheduled to leave set early as they had an audition later in the day, so while Duncan and the rest of the crew did some traffic shots by a tunnel facing the royal mile, India, Lev and I took a few photos of Lev in costume before letting releasing Lev for the day.

The last two shots we needed was Mr Balloonhead Man on the bus, and the shots of the balloon flying in the sky. For this we needed to cut the amount of crew down even more as getting on a bus with a big film crew was bound to attract too much attention. Here, I split the team into two, one to get footage of the bus, and one to collect a helium balloon from Ali's Cave on Lothian Road. Duncan, Jack and I went to Ali's Cave, while the rest hopped on a bus and got the footage we needed. I kept in constant contact with Lachlan to ensure everything was alright and it all went well!

After this shot was done, everyone headed to a hill while India met me back at the flat to start packing the equipment we didn't need up. I finished up the call sheet and ensured to check all the equipment was there before packing it all up and organising what we needed for tomorrow's shoot.

When everyone arrived back, I did a little debrief and welfare check to make sure everyone was alright and not too tired and sent everyone on their way for the day to rest for tomorrow's shoot. Overall, today was fantastic and I am so proud of everyone for being so professional and working really well to get the hard day done!

To end the day, Duncan, Gus, Lachlan and I met Fionntán to watch the big rugby game together :)

[saskiamcc]

Mr Balloonhead Man - Shoot Day 2

15/03/2024

This day was incredibly important as we had a pretty strict time limit for the scene we wanted to shoot based on location. We had the hardware store secured from 11am until 4pm, where we have to navigate filming a full scene around paying customers and staff trying to do their jobs. Luckily I have done something like this last semester and so has my DP, Gus, so I am confident that this will go smoothly.

When we arrived at unit base, I had a chat with the whole crew to discuss etiquette on set in a shop and ensured that we need to be as efficient and polite as possible, emphasising that this is still a running business so we need to be quiet and flexible as well.

Our unit base was Gus' flat, two doors down from the hardware store so this is a space I allocated for our actors to stay before they arrive on set. We have our other actor, Liam, on set today, so I wanted to ensure that there was a space that was comfortable for him to be when he wasn't on set. We were also lucky enough to have Alfie as an addition to our camera department, which also meant today went smoother.

Whilst Gus, the camera team and Lachlan (1st Ad) were sorting out equipment, Duncan and I went down to the store to talk to the manager, Anne. She gave us access to a store room where we could store our equipment, and where anyone who wasn't needed on set during set ups could sit to be out of the way. After chats with Lachlan, I allocated who should be where and when, so assigned the production design team to stay with the actors and check on costume up at the flat while the camera team did some movement tests. Because our actor Lev, was upstairs, I put the suit on to help out with camera movement checks.

Filming today went pretty smoothly and although we had the general public coming in and out of the shop, it did not really interfere with our schedule and we managed to wrap about half an hour early. Lev, our actor had reported to me that they had a little bit of neck pain from the costume, so I went to the shops to ensure I had deep heat on hand to ease the pain, and also talked to the PD team an instructed that the costume was to be taken off Lev anytime the camera was not rolling to ensure their safety.

The main issue we had was with the MixPre10. The power adaptor that was noted to be faulty yesterday stopped working and the MixPre could only work if it was plugged into the wall. The sound team reported this to me and I went across the road to a place with wifi to email the film store about this. As it was almost 2pm when I reported it, so I organised for Duncan, Gaby and I to go to the film store once we finished shooting at 4:30pm to get it checked out. It was incredibly important that we got this sorted for the next couple of days as we are shooting outside and cannot have the MixPre plugged into a wall. Unfortunately the store did not have any MixPre10s left so we had to use the Sound Device 744 instead.

Overall, today was a great success and I am very grateful for the lovely people at Houseproud of Morningside for accommodating us and being so helpful in making our film possible :)

We ended the day by moving all equipment back to Duncan's flat and I finished the call sheet for tomorrow and sent it out :) I am excited to see how tomorrow will turn out as I have never done a run and gun shoot before.