For Waiting for Marcus, Sára asked me to post a few of the BTS photos with a caption saying that we had wrapped and were going to be getting back to more regular posting, so I put that together and posted it on Monday, and reposted it on our story. I have attached it below. I continued working on the Indiegogo, adding in and formatting the information we wanted, such as the rewards for donating and the cast and crew bios. I made a list of everything I needed from Sára to complete the indiegogo, which included choosing which photos she wanted advertised on the page, deciding whether she wanted to include an edited version of her pitch in the indiegogo, and an inspiration & realisation moodboard as I didn’t have access to those photos. She sent me the moodboards and decided she did want the pitch in the page a few days later so I incorporated those into the indiegogo and then we decided to have a meeting at the start of next week to discuss which photos to include.

For Us Not Them, I finished going through all of the stills I had taken on the shoot and compiled the best ones into a google drive and sent it to the rest of the crew. I also colour graded a few of the photos to make them fit better with the aesthetic/ correct issues with the exposure.

Although this is the final week of my blog, a few of my jobs are ongoing ones, so I will continue working on the projects until they are finished. This will include finishing the indiegogo page for Waiting for Marcus, continuing posting on the social media pages of all of the projects, helping promote the projects for any festivals they enter into, and any other jobs that need doing.

This was a slightly quieter week as all of my films had wrapped and I was busier with other elements of my course, however I worked on some of my films doing posting, photo editing and working on the indiegogo page.

For Waiting for Marcus, I created a caption and posted the second cast announcement on Tuesday, reposting it on our story. I have attached a screenshot of the post below. Later in the week Sára checked up on how the indiegogo was going. I told her that I had worked on it a little, but as I had been on set the week before and away after that, I hadn’t worked on it as much as I would’ve liked, but was still on schedule to finish it by when she wanted it. I got more time over the weekend to work on the indiegogo page, and started working on the finances section, registering and verifying our bank details.

For Us Not Them I started going through the stills photos and deleting duplicates or blurry/ bad photos, and will continue this into next week.

I was on set for Us Not Them this week, so that was my main focus, however I was also working on Hypervigilant and Waiting for Marcus doing posting.

Sára messaged me asking whether the graphic designers could make a matching post with the cast annoucement posts for a short bio for each actress, so I messaged them and asked, and attached the text we wanted within. They sent them over and I passed them on to Sára. We went back and forth making a few amendments such as spelling errors and names, but eventually we were happy with the post. I posted the first of the two cast announcements on Sunday afternoon and reposted it on our story.

This week I was on set for Us Not Them. Monday was supposed to be our first day of filming, however unfortunately, the ECA had a break in over the weekend, which delayed our filming as we couldn’t go in to collect equipment. Our producer, Hana, rescheduled the shoot day to Thursday morning, as we were shooting in the evening that day. We started shooting on Tuesday in a pub called The Old Bell Inn, and then had various different locations over the course of the week, such as a car park and an industrial warehouse. For this set I was a runner and was also doing stills photography/ getting social media content. On the first day I was mostly running errands and helping out wherever extra hands were needed. On Wednesday, Louis brought in his camera for me to do some more official stills photography, so I was taking photos of cast and crew behind the scenes. I was also helping with crowd control as we were in a public space, and helped get equipment to the location from where it was being stored in ECA. On Thursday for our morning shoot, we encountered some issues with permission for filming as someone reported us for filming. However the camera crew managed to find ways to shoot the final 2 shots in a way that didn’t go against these rules. Once again I was mainly doing stills photography and helping carry equipment to and from the ECA. Then we had a break for a few hours and came back together to the warehouse for the evening shoot. Our 1st AD, Maddie, wasn’t ablee to make it to this set, however she had the key for the equipment, so I picked up the keys from her before heading to the ECA to help transport equipment to the location. This was quite a long and cold shoot, so we did a few runs to the nearest grocery store to get snacks to keep morale high. The setup was very aesthetic so I took quite a few stills photos here to use for publicity. There was one more shoot day on Sunday however I wasn’t able to make it that day. I downloaded the photos I had taken from Louis’ camera onto my computer on Friday and then gave him back his camera to take some more stills on the final shoot day. Throughout this week I was also posting photos onto our instagram story regularly with which filming day we were on. I have attached a few of my stills photos from the shoot below, however will be properly going through them and colour grading them later.

For hyper vigilant, I spoke to Roisin and asked her whether she wanted me to post something on the instagram to keep it active and she said that she would. I sent her a couple of options of stills from on set and she chose the one she liked best. I edited it slightly to make the colours stand out a little more on people’s instagram feed, created a caption, and posted it on Saturday afternoon. I have attached it below. She also wanted me to post a story with the same photo promoting the indiegogo as there wasn’t long left on the campaign. I created a caption and sent it to Roisin who edited it slightly and sent it back to me. I then put that on top of the photo and added a link to the indiegogo page and posted it on our story. I also went through the behind the scenes photos I had taken on set on Hypervigilant and deleted duplicates/ worse photos, and then sent the good photos to our groupchat.

For Us Not Them, I received a message from Hana, the producer, asking whether I could put the indiegogo link in the instagram bio, and create a post for annoucing that the indiegogo is live. I picked a few photos from the folder she gave me and created a caption, and then posted it, and the post is attached below. Later in the week I received a message from Louis asking me to post the casting call reel and then repost it to our story. I also sent in my crew contract in preparation for filming next week.

For Waiting for Marcus, I received the logo and the cast announcements from Offside, our design agency, and sent them to Sára to get her opinion on them. She was happy with the cast announcments and asked me to come up with a caption for them, however didn’t like the logo as much, as she thought the ‘f’ didn’t quite fit and wasn’t centred. These assets are attached below. I got back to Offside and let them know this feedback and they said they would get back to me with the revisions however unfortunately they still have not, so Sára said that she would chase them up and see how it was going. Sára also sent me some of the information that she wanted in the indiegogo page, so I started writing and formatting that over the weekend.

For Hypervigilant, I recived a message from Roisin, the director, asking if I could come up with a post for the instagram and post it on Tuesday. I got back to her suggesting a wrap post with some behind the scene pictures and she was happy with this. I picked a photo and created a caption and then uploaded it to our instagram and reposted it on our story. I have attached the post below. I also sent in my crew contract for filming.

This week was our shoot week for Hypervigilant, so this was my main focus for the week.

I was not present for the first few shoot days, as I wasn’t needed on set every day, and Roisin said she would let me know which days were best for content, and she sent me a little behind the scenes content from the days I wasn’t there. I was on set from Thursday to Saturday, and first I spoke to Sam, our 1st AD, as he had been doing some stills photography up until that point. He sent me some of the content he had taken to use for instagram posts, and then I started getting more content. My main job on set was to take photos and videos for behind the scenes footage. We had to check with the cast and crew that they were okay with their photos being used for content, however everyone agreed. I tried to get a range of content, from fun photos of cast and crew, to aesthetic shots of the camera with the shot in the background. I also made sure I was on hand to help with anything else around the set, such as prepping lunch or helping with set dressing. On the Saturday shoot, we had one scene where Tara, the main character, was on the phone to Cassie, Tara’s friend, and in order to get that shot, we had to have both actresses mic’ed up, on the phone, in seperate rooms. I was placed in the hallway in between the two rooms to commuincate messages from one room to another. I also tried to make a few tiktoks during the shoot in order to get a variety of content, however this proved to be difficult, as we were always busy sestting up for or going for a take, and I didn’t want to get in the way or interupt them. In the future, I would want to ask the 1st AD if it would be possible to schedule in time to get content such as tiktoks to make sure that there is time. On the Friday, Roisin asked me to upload an instagram post saying that we had started shooting. I picked out one of the behind the scenes photos that had been taken on the stills photography camera, and created a caption and posted it, and have attached it below. After the shoot was wrapped the cast and crew went out for drinks to celebrate. I have attached some photos from set below.

For the second half of the semester, we no longer have masterclasses on Monday, so there were no takeaways this week. This week we had our shoot days for Waiting for Marcus. I will also briefly mention the small tasks I did over reading week. For my other two projects it was quieter as we led up to the shoot week.

For Waiting for Marcus, I had a meeting on the Monday of reading week with Sára and the graphic designers who are working on Waiting for Marcus. We discussed what kind of deliverables we would want and the style and timings of them. Sára said that she wanted me to be the main point of contact with the graphic designers, and asked me to send them the post schedule we had drafted previously. Sára also asked if I would mind being an extra for the party scene and I said I’d be happy to. I sent the post schedule and materials to Offside, our graphic design agency, and they got back to me later in the week with two different frame options, and Sára and I agreed that the first one fit our aesthetic better. We started getting more communication about the shoot at the end of reading week/ start of week 6. She told us our roles would be teenagers dancing in a club and let us know timings and what costumes to bring. The day before we recieved the call sheet, and Sára asked me to pick up some paper plates for lunch on my way to set the next day. Wednesday was our first shoot day, so we arrived onto set and began in hair and makeup. I was finished a little earlier than some others, so went to see where I could help out setting up the set, and was told to hang some more streamers from the ceiling. Then we were briefed by Aaron, the 1st AD, and started shooting. We were shooting a dancing scene, however we couldnt actually play the music as there was conversation at parts in this scene, so one person had an earphone in with the music, and the rest of us followed her beat. I was asked to play Heather, a girl at the party who spills her drink on Charlotte during the party, and so we filmed that with a small amount of tea in a cup. We managed to film all of our scenes needed, and then we began taking down the set and putting away the equipment. The next day, Thursday, was our second shoot day, and we were filming the bus stop scene. Sára asked me to buy some kebabs on the way to the shoot as props that the characters are eating during the scene. This shoot was in the evening due to when the scene was set. My first job on set was looking after the equipment whilst it was being transported from the taxi, as we cannot leave the equipment alone in case it is stolen. Then I was asked to stand in for the actresses who were getting ready in order to compose the shot. Once we started shooting I stood on one side of the bus stop a few meters away and Vienna was stood on the other side so that if any pedestrians were walking down the street, we could let them know that we were filming and ask if they would mind walking behind the camera and keeping voices to a minimum. This mostly went off without a hitch, however we discovered that if they walk too close behind the camera, you could see their reflections in the glass of the bus stop, so we fixed that by asking them to walk a little further up. Once we had finished shooting, we helped pack up all of the equipment and clean up. There was one more shoot day on the Friday for Waiting for Marcus, however unfortunately I was unable to attend that day so that was my final day on set. A little later in the week I recieved some stills from the shoot from Molly to use for content. I have attached some photos from behind the scenes of the set below.

For Us Not Them, I continued checking the instagram, and recived a dm asking about casting, so I directed them towards our email.

Our scheduled masterclass was cancelled due to illness this week, so instead we had a great talk from sound specialist, Ali Murray. My 5 main takeaways from this talk were:

1. The earlier you can bring on a sound designer, the better. It’s cheaper and more believable to record it properly to start with than to have to fix it in post.
2. It’s good to make notes when you first watch a piece of footage. That is what the audience will see, and you will never get to see it for the first time again.
3. Try and use as many naturalistic sounds on set as possible, as it will usually sound more realistic.
4. Create a case study before taking on a project, compiling things such as likes & dislikes about the project, and the different factors playing into doing it etc
5. The same sound can be different depending on context e.g. a car crash in Mr Bean will sound very different than one in James Bond, so you have to tailor it to the project you are doing.

It has been a quieter week this week as we prepare for the shoots, so I have just been doing a few tasks here are there for each of the projects.

For Hypervigilant, I have been keeping an eye on the social media page and so when we got a message from a horror blog asking to feature us, I contacted Roisin to see if it was something she would be interested in. She said that whilst we cannot let them show the film before most of the film festivals, we can get some publicity for the film from them, so I got back to them saying that we would be interested and gave them our hypervigilant email. Roisin also asked whether I could post the casting call information on Backstage, and so I created a post for it, but unfortunately I couldn’t post it without paying for it, so I asked Roisin what she wanted to do, and am waiting to hear back.

For Waiting for Marcus, Sára asked us to spread the word about looking for extras for the party scene, so we talked to people who might be interested. Sára also asked if we could have a meeting later in the week, and we agreed on Friday at 12:00. In this meeting we discussed the timings for the shoot day and Sára checked in about the Indiegogo page. I gave her a list of the information I’d need in order to complete the Indiegogo page and she said she’d get it to me as soon as possible. She said she wants the campaign to last for 30 days, so I put that in my notes for when I do the page. We also discussed the incentives a little more as she had changed her mind on the pricing of some of them. We didn’t come up with a finalised set of incentives but Sára said we would discuss and agree on one soon. She also said that I would be getting more involved with posting on the social media, and asked me to come to a meeting with her and the graphic designers for this project on the following Monday.

We started this week off with a fantastic masterclass from publicist Clea Tammes. My 5 main takeaways from this talk were:

1. Volunteering at the Edinburgh International Film Festival was extremely useful for her in gaining experience and making contacts within the industry.
2. It’s important to think about all different user interfaces when creating content, making sure it’ll fit/ can be adapted to posters, trailers, instagram posts etc.
3. You can never get a publicist on too early in the process
4. Don’t blow all of your content at once. Wait until the point at which your audience is able to engage with the content. Most of your content should be coming out in the leadup to the release and shortly after the release of your film.
5. The P&A (Prints & Advertising) budget is usually 4 times the budget for the film as a whole, so never underestimate the importance of it.

This week was a slightly busier week, mostly for ‘Hypervigilant’ and ‘Us Not Them’, posting on the social media pages in preparation for shooting. We also had a seminar where we went through a script in our different departments and analysed the sections important to our group. I was in the production team and so we picked out areas where we would need risk assessments, or where we might need to figure out the logistics of a certain piece of set, or action.

For ‘Waiting for Marcus’, it has been a slightly quieter week as we’ve completed the casting call and are moving on to prepping for the shoot. Sára requested that I send her the meeting notes from our social media meeting the previous week and I did so over WhatsApp. I heard back from Sára about my audition and learnt that I unfortunately did not get the role, as she felt my chemistry was better with the Charlotte they decided not to go with.

For ‘Hypervigilant’ I had a meeting with director, Roisin, on Tuesday to discuss the social media strategy and to set up the Facebook page in order to distribute the casting call. We discussed the sorts of posts that we could post over the next few weeks, such as introductions to the director and DOP, cast announcements, and location photos, and Roisin gave me access to the Milanote page which has lots of the information and content for the film. She asked me to follow a number of people, as well as follow horror and film festival pages from the ‘Hypervigilant’ instagram, which I did shortly after the meeting ended, gaining us around 83 followers so far. She also requested that I post the casting call that day both on the Instagram and the Facebook pages. I added a caption which I felt captured people’s attentions and made the film seem exciting to work on, added some hashtags to get better traction, and posted it on the instagram feed & story, and on multiple different facebook groups for uk/scottish actors/ filmmakers. I have attached a photo of the post below. She also gave me the link to the Indiegogo fundraising page that she had created, along with a few inspiration images, and asked me to post that on the instagram. I suggested that we should wait a couple of days and post the funding post on Thursday, as leaving time between posts on instagram helps boost their traction within the algorithm and she agreed so I posted one of the inspiration images, along with an exciting caption, on Thursday afternoon, which I have attached below. I posted both instagram posts in the afternoon, around 4pm, as this is when they are most likely to be seen. I also messaged Roisin asking whether I would be able to audition for one of the roles in ‘Hypervigilant’ on Friday and am waiting to hear back about that.

For ‘Us Not Them’ I got a phone call from Hana and Maddie, the producer and 1st AD, asking me to post a casting call to the instagram. They had already created a post however asked me to come up with a caption and post it. I drafted a caption that evening and sent it back to Hana to check it was alright. She made a small change to the wording and sent it back to me to post the next day, which I did, adding a few hashtags and reposting it to the instagram story. I have attached the caption for this below. Whilst we were on the call there was also an issue with the password for the instagram account, however we managed to resolve the issue swiftly. I also followed quite a few other accounts, mostly either fellow students, or accounts related to film in order to boost the support for the film.

We started this week off with a masterclass from Lindsay Watson, an editor currently working in the industry. My 5 main takeaways from this talk were

1. You’re not always going to end up where you think so be open to oppurtunities. Lindsay thought she was going to be doing stills photography and ended up in editing.
2. File management is a key part of being an editor.
3. You need to have familiarity with your editing software before the editing as once you’re in the editing room, everything will be happening very quickly.
4. There is more security with in house editing, and you get to meet important people in the industry- however freelance is more unrestrained, so you can work with who you want and can bounce ideas off each other more.
5. Good communication is essential between the editor & the director/ producer. As an editor, you must tell them timings for the project & individual tasks.

This week I continued working on my 4th year grad films, having meetings and doing tasks for them. We also had a seminar with talks from some older students and from Julie about particular aspects of film and being on set, such as the art department, sound and camera. These were helpful to get a different perspective and understand more about set etiquette and smaller parts of the job that we might not have previously considered.

For Waiting For Marcus we had scheduled a social media meeting on Tuesday, so I met with Sára and Molly and we discussed our social media strategy, and what we wanted for future posts. We decided that I would handle the tiktok whilst Molly would handle the instagram, however we would both help each other out where needed. Sára and I also briefly discussed what we wanted to use as the incentives for the indiegogo page, and we decided on the setup included in the photo below. I was also auditioning for Waiting For Marcus as an actress, and so I had my callback on Saturday. I was auditioning for the role of Lucy, and I auditioned with two other actresses who were auditioning for the role of Charlotte to test for chemistry. In preparation for this, I read the full script and then practiced the section which I was going to be auditioning with, trying a few different styles to see which worked.

For Hypervigilant I heard back from Roisin that she liked the second version of my casting call, and requested that I upload it to the instagram and distributed it across facebook pages. Unfortunately that day I got injured, so I was unable to work on this for a few days, however I communicated this with her and she was very understanding. In this email I also asked whether we could have a brief meeting to discuss social media strategy and any upcoming posts she might want and so we arranged a meeting for the following Tuesday.

We started this week off with our second masterclass, this time from writer/ director, Louis Paxton. My 5 main takeaways from this talk were:

1. Sometimes smaller cities are actually better than larger ones for getting job oppurtunities in film as there is more of a tight knit community. Louis talked about how he lived in London for a few years and one of the best decisions he made was coming back to Edinburgh, as he was able to make more meaningful connections there.
2. Different types of challenges occur when working with children on set, especially when they’re neurodiverse, so you need to experiement around and find what works. Louis was talking about how he found food to be good for getting one of his younger actors to stay more still and focused on the film.
3. There are different routes to go down when it comes to casting, and each have their merits. You can either cast through your own circle of friends, family and people you’ve previously worked with, or you can go through an agency.
4. Sometimes it takes time to find your own style. Louis talked about how he wasn’t fully satisfied by some of his films at different points of his career, and it took time and a range of different experiences to find out what worked and what didn’t for him.
5. Sometimes with actors, and especially with younger or less experienced actors, it is easier to generate the emotion you want them to portray by actually making them experience it, than by telling them to act that emotion. For instance Louis said that when he wanted one of his actors on his set of ‘Neville is Dead’ to act bored, he’d just make him actually be bored and capture that, and this creates more realistic, truthful acting.

We started hearing more from some of the 4th years about the grad films this week and I got a few tasks to complete, and had a few meetings. I also attended a 4th year FTV & Graphic Design mixer in order to better understand the relationship between the two, and to make connections with some of the Graphic Designers who are running the studios which I will likely be working with for the 4th year films.

For ‘Waiting for Marcus’, I had a meeting with the director, Sára, and the rest of the production team on Wednesday. I told her about my research on the Indiegogo page and we discussed the next steps for that. One of the tasks she set me was to set up a login for Indiegogo with the ‘Waiting for Marcus’ email and then explore the setup process a little to see what information we’d need to collect. I completed this on Sunday morning, and found out that we needed information such as a blurb, the bank information, the perks and more. I contacted Sára to let her know this information so she was kept in the loop. My other task was emailing certain key crew members for a photo and bio which could be used for the Indiegogo and other purposes, such as the social media. We briefly encountered problems when I tried to log into the ‘Waiting for Marcus’ email, however we communicated and managed to temporarily solve the issue.

For ‘Hypervigilant’, I recieved an email from Roisin asking whether I’d be able to put together a casting call using the information she provided. I worked on this on Sunday afternoon, first researching what it could look like visually, based off of the images and description provided in their pitch, and then putting it together on Canva and making sure it was easily readable. I used a still from their pitch as the background and blurred and faded it slightly to make the words stand out better against it. I wasn’t sure whether it was readble enough, so I made another one with a graphic background as a second option. I got some feedback from another first year film student to have an outside opinion on it, and then made a couple of small changes and sent both in to Roisin to ask which she preferred and if she wanted any changes made. I have attached the two casting calls below.

For ‘Us Not Them’, I met the director, Louis, at the FTV & Graphic Design mixer, and talked to him about my experience in marketing, and we discussed the film and how it would work with the graphic designers. He introduced me to Leoni, one of the 4th year Graphic Designers, who has applied to work on ‘Us Not Them’. A little later in the week on Thursday I got communication from their 1st AD, Maddie, asking me to create an instagram account for the film. I did this on Friday morning, however ran into complications as the name “usnotthemfilm” was not available, despite me not being able to find an account with this name. The HoDs offered up some alternate suggestions, and I gave my recommendation for which I felt would work the best, and we decided to go with that, which was “usnotthem.film”. I then created the account and shared it with Maddie to share with the rest of the HoDs.