Fictional Adaptation - Production Notes

Weather and Plot Change

The filming for this project has been difficult as I haven't had many free days in which I can film, this is compounded by the weather as the first filming day there was non-stop rain which meant I could not film outside, I instead filmed all the inside shots on the first day of shooting and then on the second I filmed outside, I decided mid-shoot to change one of the key plot points which was Owen being hit by a car.

I realised that this would be too difficult to show and maybe a bit abrupt, therefore I simply had Owen collapse and leave the audience in slight suspense on whether he was alive or not.

An issue arose where my actress was called away before we could film the final shots in the graveyard, this was a problem as I didn't have any free days before the rough cut but Mike was ok about it, I filmed the final scene on Sunday and ran into another issue with the weather, specifically the few inches of snow.

Whilst this does work in a way with showing the passage of time I was hoping to have a shot of the dog with a snowflake falling down and landing on his nose, this would be a "sign" from his owner, I cant change the weather unfortunately so the snow will have to stay, I feel the scene will not have the same impact but there isn't much I can do in the time I have.

Timelapse

I also planned to do a timelapse to help show the passage of time, my initial plan was to do a timelapse showing from night until day and loop it a few times to show days passing, however I discovered a different method which requires setting the camera to the Apeture Prioty, this will change how long the shutter will be open for and expose the image to the same brightness.

It creates an interesting effect which looks like there has been a picture taken every day when in actuality it was over one night and morning. This works much better as it shows a larger period of time passing. Having the dog sitting in one spot with slight movements on each image also will help show how he has been sitting infront of his door waiting for his master to return.

Animation

The animation of the dog is something that is quite new to me, I have gotten help with a animation student to animate the dog onto the footage, since there is a lot to edit I wanted to start the animation and the edit at the same time, I made a rough cut quickly and sent it over to my animator so she could start.