Back in 2010, faces looked younger, my hair was a lot longer and production on 'At First Sight' had begun. This was my final year film for university so times were very tense and ideas were big.

On the production team, we had fellow filmannex'ers Tim Orchard as Producer/Co-Writer and Anderson West as Director of Photography. We had been given 10 weeks to complete this film as a collaboration as well as making our own films at the same time. 

The film was heavily inspired by Peter Jackson's 'The Lovely Bones' and we wanted to really focus on telling a story using unconventional techniques. There is no dialogue in the film and as such requires the audience to engage in the sounds and visuals of the film.

My behind the scenes time-lapse video on my WebTV shows how we created the 'endless' white room effect without the use of a u-shaped infinity cove. Because we were using curtains, we had to over-expose the curtains with lots of very large lights in order to hide any ripples.

For the outside scene, we had a very cold, grey and cloudy day (which could also be described as typical British weather!). As this was supposed to be a 'dream' world, Tim Orchard was able to use sky replacement techniques, in after effects, on the background and turn it into a more colourful and vibrant atmosphere.

The hospital scene was shot in a training room at Keele Hospital. We were lucky enough to get the room for free but were only limited to film in there for a few hours so we had to work fast. All of the equipment in the scene is actual hospital equipment.

The production of the film took a lot of work and was riddled with difficulties which forced us all on a steep learning curve. To this day has been the film that has taught me the most about all areas of film making. 

 

Trivia:

- The total budget for the film came to around £500

- All of the sky seen in the outdoor scenes is actually a photograph of a more interesting looking sky.

- The flowers found in the bedside cabinet are actually 'Camilia' petals which is also the name of the main character.

- Almost all of the sound effects in the film were foley'ed after the filming took place.

- The sound effects used for the 'Reaper' character are all car sound effects as the reaper acts as a metaphor of the main character getting hit by a car causing her to be in this coma induced dream. 

 

If you have any questions on the production of the film, feel free to send me a message or leave a comment below!