On Sunday 19th May, we did the principle shooting for Marigolds. This was a short comedy drama I'd written late last year when challenged to write 4 green screen short film scripts. This was the third one made.

As part of the preparation, I had a go at a storyboard. I did cartoon drawing course at the Folk House years ago. As you can see below, I remembered none of it!

I also completed a shooting schedule. The second one I'd made and something I had little to no experience of. I've attached a snipped below. The final version also had line numbers from the script. 

 Here's a snapshot from the script to show those line numbers. 

In terms of timing, we started shooting about 40 minutes behind schedule. This was due to the setup taking longer than expected.  Our initial shots were over the shoulder shots onto a green screen placed on the astroturfed ground. We wanted to make sure it looked like the actors had their feet hanging so we had to jury rig some planks across two benches for them to sit on. It worked but took longer than planned.

We replicated this arrangement somewhat for the main shots against the white wall, raising them higher to make it their legs hang down naturally. Here is one from the scouting trip which shows that without elevation the legs hit the floor. 

The weather began brilliantly on the day but gave way to some light showers of rain. Here you can see us managing to keep dry with the use of a free umbrellas. We did a few of the close ups during these moments.

We finished the filming just after 5pm and let the actors go. We tided up the space and were gone by 6pm. We've got about 2 hours more shooting to do on the ground (things falling and rising) and over the ledge (for the green screen fills). 

I'd read that 6 minutes is the sweet spot for a day's filming. From this experience, I'd say this was about right for a single location. It was a great day and I learnt a lot about the directors job - making decisions on the spot and trusting your instincts.