Perfect Little Mess by Tall&Short Productions
Film: Perfect Little Mess
Director: Reece Beale
Producer: Gabrielle Joannou
Perfect Little Mess was the first film with their first shoot day date of February 25th. The day before, director, producer, art director (Jonathan Tang) and set designer (me) met at the location to begin with the set decoration. Things went slowly but smoothly and we set up the main “party” area just in a couple of hours. Afterwards we moved on to the bedroom where we changed a couple of props and put photographs on the walls.
The photographs were from one of my friends who studies BA Photography at Middlesex and specializes in horror photography. I have contacted her prior to filming asking her whether she was okay with her pictures being used. Couple days before shooting she signed an intellectual copyright agreement and everything was good to go.
The next day the shooting began and even though it was the end of February and the weather was not one of the best, one scene had to be shot outside during the night, which resulted in most of the crew being cold and one of the actresses almost freezing. Before the crew moved out to the garden of the house, I made lights arrangements on the bush behind the bench and then the crew and cast started to move in and begin with the scene.
On the last day the shoot moved outside of the premises of the house to a nearby corner with a brick wall where Jonathan and I set up a memorial. The problem arose when neither of us knew which brick wall the director meant to use, I think I need to say one: there are 5 “tall brick walls” on that intersection he wanted to use for his set. When leaving the house, we asked multiple times which wall he meant but got the same answer as many times as we asked: “The brick one on the right.” I hope it’s needless to say that the only wall that we could exclude was the one on the left. Obviously, not knowing which wall it was supposed to be, we started with the wrong one. We were almost done, when Reece appeared and tld us we were setting up at the wrong wall (not very nicely either). Jonathan was already on the edge (as was I, but a little less), so he showed his discontentment with how this situation was being treated. The three of us exchanged a couple angry sentences. Couple minutes later we exchanged apologies and everything was solved. After all we were 3 adults working on a film together and we needed to move on. No grudges held - professionalism.
When all scenes have finished (late at night) I took responsibility for taking down the set and to my best ability made the house like it was before. The same with the day after the shoot - I returned in the morning and took down the set in the bedroom.
The shoot has finished successfully and now the film had moved into post production.
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